Decades before the Vanderbilts crashed Newport society, the Cushings breezed into town. In 1865, siblings Robert Maynard Cushing and Mary Louisa (Cushing) Boit acquired 36 prime acres off soon-to-open Ocean Drive. Heirs to a vast fortune made by their father in the China Trade, these bohemian Boston Brahmins built a family compound. Several houses and outbuildings arose, most notably The Ledges, an asymmetrical Stick-Style cottage designed for Robert by Boston architect John Hubbard Sturgis. Perched atop a rocky promontory, it looms over some of the most spectacular oceanfront scenery on the Eastern Seaboard.
Five generations later, the Cushings remain in situ. Driving through The Ledges’ gates, one enters a world that seems out of another time, with its impeccably clipped hedges, lush hydrangeas, pristine verandas, and stiff cocktails.
Even as it maintains its traditions, The Ledges isn’t stuck in the past. That was evident on a sparkling morning last summer, when Madrid-born Lucia Cushing called out “Chicos!” as she sought to corral three rambunctious young boys.
“Not much has changed here,” observed her husband, Howard Gardiner Cushing III—Robert’s great- great- grandson. “It was always a happy place. Now, to see my boys running around here and having that same feeling—it’s pretty special.”
With its exposed location, The Ledges has weathered many storms. A hurricane in 1938 inflicted heavy damage to the house while it destroyed the greenhouses, stable, and carriage house. A large rock that had been hurled onto the south lawn still remains. With its distinctive silhouette in its dramatic setting, overlooking Bailey’s Beach, The Ledges remains one of the most iconic houses in America. (Recently, it served as a location for scenes in The Gilded Age.)
Today, various family members reside in different buildings on the estate, which now encompasses 11 acres. Howard and Lucia have built a traditional white frame home for themselves. His brother Jamie and his wife Mimi stay in a wing of the main house when they are up from New York; Caterine Milinaire, the France-born widow of the brothers’ uncle Frederick, lives in the gate cottage. Their aunt, Minnie Cushing Coleman, lives in a shingle-style cottage called Seal Rock.
The Ledges, a Stick-Style house built for Robert Maynard Cushing by Boston architect John Hubbard Sturgis in 1867. The Newport property now encompasses 11 acres and several buildings, where members of the Cushing family still reside.
At 83, Minnie is a grande dame of Newport. But she’s still a free spirit, and people of a certain age in Newport remember well her first wedding, in 1967, to photographer Peter Beard, whom she had met in Kenya. The night before, there was a party at Bailey’s Beach. Torches and fireworks flared as African drummers and performers brought everyone to the dance floor to do the Watusi, the Fanga, and so forth. For the ceremony, 416 guests packed into the candlelit Trinity Church, built in 1725. A fledgling Oscar de la Renta designed the bride’s long white organdy dress with appliqués of organdy flowers, which is now in the collection of The Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; de la Renta drove up from New York to deliver it to Minnie, who had worked as his assistant. Afterwards, the reception was held at The Ledges, where Peter Duchin and his orchestra performed in a green and white–striped tent with a hardwood floor. The glamorous bride and groom departed for their honeymoon in a bubble-top helicopter.
They divorced three years later, but remained great friends. After marrying James “Jimmy” Coleman Jr., a prominent lawyer and business leader in New Orleans, Minnie lived between Rhode Island and Louisiana until his death in 2019. With a shared passion for art education, the couple are now immortalized in the Minnie and Jimmy Coleman Center for Creative Studies at the Newport Art Museum, the campus of which also includes the Cushing Memorial Gallery.
The Studio, an extension of the main house added in the late 19th century. Family photos abound, including some shot by Toni Frissell, Slim Aarons, and Peter Beard. For generations, it has also doubled as the best party room in town.
“The Cushings are the essence of Newport. They’re the best of Newport,” says Palm Beach doyenne Kate Gubelmann, who summers in Newport. “Minnie is just a tour-de-force and now Howard and Lucia have really taken the reins of leading Newport into the next generation. They’re awesome.”
There is no better place to absorb the ethos of Newport, and the Cushing family, than the Studio, an extension of the main house added in the late 19th century. Here, Robert’s four creative children engaged in artist pursuits. One of them, Howard Gardiner Cushing, indeed became a significant artist. After he inherited The Ledges from his parents, he put his creative stamp on the eight-bedroom main house, most notably in the two-story entrance hall, where he painted a fanciful mural featuring exotic plants, birds, and butterflies.
The Studio is filled with testaments to active lives, including trophies from big-game hunts in Africa, as well as an array of paintings by Howard Gardiner Cushing, who studied painting in Paris in the late 19th century and became a significant artist.
Born in 1869, he studied painting in Paris, where he befriended a circle of artists that included James McNeill Whistler. An American Impressionist, Cushing bridged the traditions of 19th-century realism with early modernism. He was also an early member of the Newport Art Association— now the Newport Art Museum—and helped shape the region’s artistic identity. Due to his early death at age 47, his career was cut short. Most of his work was inherited by his three children and still remains largely in family hands.
Recently, many of those paintings went on view in an exhibition, Howard Gardiner Cushing: A Harmony of Line and Color. Running through May 31, the show is on view at the Newport Art Museum’s Cushing Building, which was commissioned by the artist’s good friend Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney in his honor after his death. “It’s the first time anyone has seen a retrospective of his work since his death,” says Howard III. Consequently, the show has been a revelation for the family as well as the public, he says: “It was unexpected how moving it was for us.”
Howard III, Robert M. Cushing’s great-great-grandson, was born and raised in Manhattan, but spent childhood summers at The Ledges. In 2023, he opened Gardiner House, a boutique hotel in Newport inspired by The Ledges as well as his godfather Mark Birley’s art-filled London clubs.
Decorated with an array of Cushing’s paintings, the Studio is something of a shrine to the artist. For generations, it has also doubled as the best party room in town. “It’s sort of indestructible. We have 80 people in here all the time,” attests Howard III. Guests have included extended family relations such as Babe (Cushing) Paley and C.Z. Guest as well as fellow Newport royal Doris Duke.
In addition to its ample bar and many comfy seating areas, the room is filled with testaments to active lives: trophies from big game hunts in Africa, Harvard crew team oars—almost all the Cushing men are alumni—and ski paraphernalia. (Howard III’s great-uncle Alexander, a lawyer, cofounded California’s Squaw Valley ski resort in 1949.)
This is an excerpt from PALMER Vol. 11. To read the full story, click here to purchase the issue.
