by Matthew Longcore
The weekend of July 19th through 21st marks one of the most sartorially splendid events on the summer social calendar: the International Tennis Hall of Fame Weekend in Newport, Rhode Island. This year’s inductees are Vijay Amritraj, Richard Evans, and Leander Paes. The schedule of events is packed with tennis matches including quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals of the ATP 250 Infosys Hall of Fame Open tournament.
Highlights of the ITHF Hall of Fame Weekend include Brooks Brothers Brunch with Legends on Saturday morning. Brooks Brothers is a longtime partner of the International Tennis Hall of Fame and sponsor of the Hall of Fame Enshrinement weekend.
Ivy-Style editor and Preppy Handbook Fan Club founder Matthew Longcore will attend the Hall of Fame Weekend representing Brooks Brothers as a brand ambassador, along with executives from Brooks Brothers and other special guests. Over the course of the weekend, Brooks Brothers will feature photos and videos from the event, which will also be shared on the social media pages for Ivy-Style and the Preppy Handbook Fan Club.
Brooks Brothers Brunch with Legends is an annual event in which each member of the incoming class of inductees is presented with an official Brooks Brothers Hall of Fame blazer. Brunch and mimosas will be served in the iconic Horseshoe Court, which was featured in HBO’s The Gilded Age. Following the brunch, the tournament will commence. The Hall of Fame Weekend will culminate with the Induction Ceremony on Saturday when the Class of 2024 will take their place amongst the greatest champions in the history of tennis.
Another event, Courting Fashion at Rosecliff, on Friday night will feature iconic fashions from the ITHF collection on display for the first time. Rosecliff, an historic mansion on Bellevue Avenue, provides an ideal setting for this event. The mansion was built during the Gilded Age between 1898 and 1902 for Nevada silver heiress Theresa Fair Oelrichs. Architect Stanford White of the famous firm McKim, Mead and White modeled Rosecliff after the Grand Trianon, the garden retreat of French kings at Versailles. Rosecliff made an appearance in the 1974 film adaptation of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. In the film, directed by Jack Clayton and starring Robert Redford as Jay Gatsby, Rosecliff became Gatsby’s grand Long Island estate. Ralph Lauren designed the 1920s menswear for the film.
There truly could not be a more appropriate setting for this event. In 1909, Brooks Brothers opened a store in Newport at the Audrain Building at 220 Bellevue Avenue, just a few steps from the Casino. Among its offerings in the early 20th century, the Newport store specialized in clothes for lawn tennis.
The Newport Casino, which graces the cover of this Summer Issue of Quest Magazine, is an historic and iconic building. Ross Cann, a Newport based architect and Principal at A4 Architecture + Planning, is a tennis aficionado and box holder at the venue. In his article titled Newport Architecture Spotlight: The Newport Casino, Cann writes:
“Newport is a treasure trove of architecture from multiple eras including the Colonial, the Victorian, and the Gilded Age. If one had to pick a single building that most epitomizes the city’s history and character you would be hard pressed to make a better selection than the Newport Casino … It was designed in a style that was derived from the Queen Anne Revival style popular at the time but with a level of inventiveness and creativity that marked the passage into a new style that Yale Architecture scholar Vincent Scully would eventually name ‘The Shingle Style.’”
In his book Sporting Gentlemen: Men’s Tennis from the Age of Honor to the Cult of the Superstar, the late E. Digby Baltzell covers the origins of the sport with a focus on the tennis code of honor rooted in the cricket code of the Anglo-American upper class in the late 19th century. Baltzell, who was a distinguished sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania, is perhaps best remembered for having coined the acronym WASP to describe his fellow members of the American old money upper class. Baltzell describes the social origin of tennis in Newport, Rhode Island:
“Edith Jones (later Wharton) made her debut in the winter season of 1879-80 and then spent a very gay summer in Newport. Her heaviest beau at the time, Harry Stevens, son of the pushy Mrs. Paran Sevens, brought back enough tennis equipment from England (he had studied but took no degrees from St. Mark’s School and Oxford) to lay out the first tennis court in Newport, on the lawn of his mother’s mansion on Bellevue Avenue … The next year, in 1881, the Newport Casino, designed by Stanford White for James Gordon Bennett Jr., one of the leading American sportsmen of his day, was completed at its present site on Bellevue Avenue.” (Sporting Gentlemen: 21)
The Newport Casino was the first great building of the architectural firm McKim, Mead and White. The firm opened in 1879 and left a great legacy in American architecture. Commissions included the casinos at Narragansett Pier and at Rhinebeck, New York, and the Germantown Cricket Club in Philadelphia, and the New York Racquet and Tennis Club. Among the Newport mansions, the firm designed the Isaac Bell House (1883) and Rosecliff (1898–1902).
Baltzell offers a scholarly description of architect Stanford White:
“Stanford White, who surely ranks among a handful of the greatest architects in American history, saw architecture as an expressive and pictorial symbol, as a permanent set, of an age. And his Newport Casino, which seated fewer than 4,000 ladies and gentlemen by the time of our last National Championships there in 1914, remains a classic symbol of the founding era of lawn tennis.” (Sporting Gentlemen: 360-361)
The Official Preppy Handbook – which features crossed tennis racquets on its famous madras cover – includes Charles Follen McKim, William Rutherford Mead, and Stanford White in the Prep Pantheon with the following humorous caption:
“Literally the foundations of New York Prep. The architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White designed the Century Association, the Harvard Club, the Metropolitan Club, and the University club – thus ensuring continual shelter and soggy cheddar cheese and crackers for the richest WASP drones of the city.” (The Official Preppy Handbook: 1980)
In 1954, the late Jimmy Van Alen founded the International Hall of Fame as a “shrine to the ideals of the game.” Today, it is recognized as the official Hall of Fame for the sport of tennis globally. Over the course of its history. 262 distinguished inductees representing 27 different countries have been enshrined in Newport. Facilities include thirteen grass tennis courts, six hard courts, one clay court, and one rare Court Tennis, or “Real Tennis” facility. All of the courts are utilized regularly by club members and are open to the public, except during tournament week.
Tennis has long been associated with being well-dressed, from the classic tennis whites worn by players to the elegant attire of attendees. Ivy-Style will provide full coverage of the International Tennis Hall of Fame Weekend, including the best dressed guests.
For more information about International Tennis Hall of Fame Weekend events, please visit:
I love the architecture, Rosecliff more so than the Casino – shingle style, although I’ve never trusted a flat roof concerning drainage.
I never played here, but my bandleader boss did before the Korean War.
https://www.chicagohistory.org/trianon-ballroom/
Yale architectural historian Vincent Scully was a scholar of the shingle style in Newport. Here is a great article about the shingle style from my friend, Newport based architect Ross Cann:
https://a4arch.com/a4-architecture-tour-the-shingle-style/
Thank you, Matthew. There are a couple of properties in this shingle style near Pinehurst Country Club in NC. One feature of both is that they have stables.
Matthew, maybe you could post the story on how James Bennet Gordon needed a new venue to hang out after being kicked out of the Reading Room.
Also, this year’s tournament will be its last at the Casino as the ATP is revamping its schedule and this tournament was left off. Patrick McEnroe is scheduled to announce next year’s activities for Hall of Fame weekend in a few weeks. Back in 1981, I attended the finals and doing the TV coverage for PBS’ WGBH Boston was Jack Kramer and Bud Collins. Had Jack sign my ticket stub so I have a real Jack Kramer Autograph!
Looking forward to your coverage of “our Wimbledon”!
Here is the story about James Bennett Gordon:
https://buildingsofnewengland.com/tag/james-gordon-bennett-jr/
Nice to see the Baltzell ref. Half through a reread of “Philadelphia Gentlemen” and while full of a trained sociologist’s statistical pedantry (particularly in comparison to his anecdote full “Protestant Establishment”) it still offers interesting insight into the rigorous meritocracy which defined the earlier days of the Upper Class. How things have changed. Speaking of change, was sorting through some of Dad’s garage stuff and found his old Spalding wooden racket; what a heavy piece of work in comparison to my Wilson ProStaff! Those men were made of sterner stuff.
Last time I was in Newport was for the 1960 Newport Jazz Festival and riot, in
which I didn’t participate. On prior visits I loved the place, the Breakers, Georgian
architecture and the Touro Synagogue. Re: Tennis I regularly attended trhe US Open
in the old Forest Hills Stadium. Sartorially, a sea of Lacoste and, Fred Perry shirts, blue
blazers and Madras during the Ivy heyday.
I do not even know how I ended up here but I thought this post was great I dont know who you are but definitely youre going to a famous blogger if you arent already Cheers