A Jazz Age Masterpiece: The Legacy of Bois Doré
Completed in 1927 and designed by Charles A. Platt, Bois Doré stands as one of the final great mansions of Newport’s storied summer colony. With its refined French château silhouette, limestone façades, and formal terraces, the estate embodies the elegance and optimism of the late Jazz Age. The house is monumental—nearly twenty bedrooms, vast enfilades of rooms, extraordinary plasterwork, grand staircases, and a ballroom that once held lavish parties at the peak of Newport society.
Yet, as Fairfax pointed out, Bois Doré is more than a beautiful artifact. It sits at the crossroads of American architectural history: a bridge between European influence and a growing desire for a distinctly American country house tradition. Its gardens, originally designed with Platt’s disciplined formality, intentionally blur the line between landscape and architecture—a theme central to Fairfax’s broader work.
A House for its Own Century… and the Next
In her lecture, Fairfax introduced a concept she called “heritage sustainability,” the idea that preserving and adapting historic structures is often more ecologically responsible than demolishing or radically transforming them. Bois Doré, she argued, offers a perfect test case.
