If the environmental activists are right, the planet should be getting warmer every year, so if the world's really going to hell in a proverbial handbasket, you might as well enjoy the weather behind the wheel of a convertible. But while there are plenty of delectable cabrios and roadsters on the market already, some want something a little different. Fortunately there are skilled chop-shops that can lop the roof off just about any car and replace it with a folding canvas top. One of the most experienced is California's Newport Convertible Engineering, whose portfolio includes such recent and varied conversions as a Hummer H2 sport-utility, Toyota Prius hybrid, Cadillac CTS sedan and the Mercedes CL coupe you see here. Benz has been talking about bringing back the CL cabriolet for some time, but evidently one customer was tired of waiting. The conversion job costs about $10,000, but considering that this donor vehicle cost six figures already, that seems like just a drop in the bucket.

The Swanhurst Manor House in Newport, Rhode Island was built in 1851 and was one of the first of twelve Newport Mansions established along Bellevue Avenue. The home was passed down over the years from mother to daughters in the Swan family before being willed to the Newport Art Association. The will said that the home must always be known as Swanhurst. The home is on 1.56 acres of landscaped grounds. The home has been kept true to its 19th century style and features a foyer with a classic stairway, a double living room, a formal dining room with a fireplace, gentleman's library, and a sitting room. The kitchen has been remodeled with granite countertops and new appliances. There are six bedrooms on the second floor including a master suite with a fireplace and new master bath. This home is listed at $5.6 million.

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Last summer when we wrote about Land Rover's 60th anniversary we visited the incredible Astor Courts in Rhinebeck, N.Y, designed by Stanford White as part of a country retreat for John Jacob Astor IV in 1902. The Astor Courts features prominently in a beautiful new book from Rizzoli, Stanford White, Architect. White, the visionary head of famed firm McKim, Mead & White, was arguably the most celebrated American architect of his day and a "defining figure of the so-called Gilded Age." In addition to the Astor Courts (originally the Ferncliff Casino), the book features many of White's buildings, including Beacon Rock in Newport, Rhode Island (above).

The book, by White's great-grandson Samuel G. White and Elizabeth White with photography by Jonathan Wallen, comprehensively explores White's "sumptuously rich oeuvre," from his own residences on Long Island and in Gramercy Park, to the "extraordinary and opulent" houses such as the incredible Rosecliff in Newport (see the gallery) and Villard Houses and Payne Whitney mansion in New York City. It also includes the lavish private clubs he designed such as the Century Association, the old Madison Sqaure Garden and Tiffany & Co., churches, monuments and more.



Rosecliff, commissioned by Nevada silver heiress Theresa Fair Oelrichs in 1899, is without a doubt the most extravagant house in the book. Designed to evoke Louis XIV's Grand Trianon at Versailles, it cost $2.5 million by the time it was completed in 1902 - about $60 million in today's dollars. The mansion, which is now a museum, was used to film scenes from 1974's The Great Gastby starring Robert Redford. Oelrichs hosted many fabulous parties at Rosecliff, including a fairy tale dinner and party featuring famed magician Harry Houdini as the evening's entertainment. In 1904 she staged the famous "Bal Blanc" to celebrate the Astor Cup Races, in which everything in the house was white and silver.

The classical Astor Courts is pictured on the book's cover. A less opulent but equally beautiful echo of the Grand Trianon, the five-bedroom structure features an indoor tennis court and swimming pool, and cost $1 million to build, or about $22 million in today's dollars. The building was a complete wreck in 2002 when a former TV producer purchased it for $3.2 million and set about an intense restoration. Five years and more than a million dollars later, it has been restored to White's original grandeur.

Beechwood, the Mrs. Astor's 39-room Italianate mansion in Newport, Rhode Island and one of the last great relics of the Gilded Age, is now being offered for sale for $14.9 million. The 19,000-sq.-ft., 15-bedroom house on Newport's famous Bellevue Avenue, was listed at $16 million last year (as my colleague Deidre Woollard reported) and has since served as a "living history museum" showing what life was like for the Gilded Age idle rich before they were forced to sell off their mansions.

The museum is a bit cheesy, with events like "An Evening With the Astors", but Beechwood does have a very rich history. In fact, with the $1.1 million discount it might even be something of a bargain. Cole Porter was said to have written Night and Day, one of his most famous songs, while visiting Beechwood, and the house also made an appearance in the 1956 Bing Crosby / Frank Sinatra / Grace Kelly movie High Society. Originally constructed in 1851 by Calvert Vaux - co-designer of Central Park - and Andrew Jackson Downing for drygoods magnate Daniel Parish, it was on the market when well-bred debutante Caroline Schermerhorn married billionaire merchant William Backhouse Astor Jr., giving the Astors some much needed social cachet.



Mr. Astor owned the Ambassadress, the largest private yacht in the world at the time, and a beautiful Hudson River mansion called Ferncliff. "The Mrs. Astor" as she soon insisted upon being referred to, intended to entertain in grand style with her husband's money and needed a Newport mansion in which to do it during the summer season, which lasted for eight precious weeks. The Astors bought the place in 1881 and spent $2 million on improvements, including the addition of a mirrored waterfront ballroom by architect Richard Morris Hunt (who designed the Fifth Avenue facade of Manhattan's Metropolitan Museum of Art) complete with bas reliefs depicting Poseidon and Aphrodite.

Mrs. Astor soon became the reigning queen of New York society, and her Summer Ball at Beechwood was the highlight of the season. She and social arbiter Ward McAllister then founded the famous "Four Hundred", referring to the strictly limited number of socially acceptable families (i.e. not nouveau riche) in New York - which some people are still trying to get into. Her son, John Jacob Astor IV, who inherited Beechwood, later went down on the Titanic, the ship's wealthiest passenger.

Another beautiful Newport, Rhode Island house has hit the market. Wrentham House was recognized in 2008 with the Rhode Island historic preservation and heritage commission award. The granite and brownstone oceanfront estate,which was originally known as Indian Spring, was the first collaboration between Richard Morris Hunt, legendary founder of the American institute of Architects, and esteemed landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted. The 14,400-square-foot mansion was created in 1891 for yachtsman and defender of the America's Cup J.R. Busk. The twenty-two room masterpiece on five acres was recently restored and is located on Ocean Avenue with prime water views.

The home's has beautiful woodwork with impressive carved details. There are eight bedrooms total along with staff quarters. The 1,800-square-foot master suite has his and hers marble baths with an adjoining study with mahogany built-ins and a wet bar. The huge living room has a cathedral ceiling and an orchestra balcony. Three sets of French doors open onto an 80-foot ocean front porch. The mahogany-paneled library and the elegant dining room feature ornamental plaster ceilings and attractive fireplaces. The home also has a multilevel home theater, a billiard room, a wine cellar, a pair of family rooms and a modern gourmet kitchen with a butler's pantry. Modern systems include security, intercom, and central vacuum. This home is listed at $12.75 million.

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The high-end condo market seems to be thriving in Newport, Rhode Island. The new complex, the Residences at Brown & Howard Wharf in Newport went on the market last month and six of the 16 units have been sold or are under contract which is pretty impressive in today's worrisome real estate market. The condos are pretty expensive by Rhode Island standards ranging up to $3.6 million. The 16 harborside homes have perfect views of Newport Harbor and dockage for yachts up to 250 feet in length.

Condo units range from 2,300 to 3,200 square feet and have open-plan interiors with numerous balconies. Owners can work with the on-site interior design coordinator to select finishes and style elements. Living rooms will have a gas fireplace, kitchens and laundry rooms feature an appliance package, with a Sub-Zero refrigerator, Wolf gas cook-top, ventilation hood, microwave and oven. Asko 4-cycle dishwashers and Bosch washers and dryers are also included in the unit.

[via Providence Journal]

This Newport, Rhode Island home is a beauty with a long history. The home was built in 1881 for Edwin Dennison Morgan III, of the J.P. Morgan family and became a studio for sculptor Felix de Weldon, who created the statue of The Flag Raising on Iwo Jima. The home sits on three acres of rolling lawns and boasts beautiful harbor views. The home is an 11,000 square foot residence which has luxurious details such as gold brick domed ceilings and hand painted Gracie murals. The home is completely modern but the exposed brick and hewn beams show the original home's bones. The home has a lavish master suite and four additional en suite bedrooms. The property also includes a fitness cottage, landscaped grounds and a small pool. It is listed at $9.9 million.

Three centuries worth of New England's magnificent houses and mansions are collected in an equally grand new book from Rizzoli: Great Houses of New England, by Roderic H. Blackburn (text) and Geoffrey Gross (photography). Spanning a wide range of styles, these stately houses are the originals from which many of today's McMansions have been copied. They're more than just artifacts, however; as Blackburn writes, "Through the architecture and decorative arts we see the development of a people and their region."

Among the more splendid examples in the book is the Jeremiah Lee Mansion in Marblehead, Mass., dating from 1767 (pictured here), the impressiveness of which is "conveyed by its subdued monumentality," Blackburn notes. Lee, a shipping merchant, built it to emulate aristocratic estates in England, so you might say not all that much has changed. Also of note are the beautiful brick Georgian Macpheadris-Warner House in Portsmouth, N.H., dating from 1716; Rosecliff, a palatial McKim, Mead & White mansion which was the setting for the movie version of The Great Gasby; and Brookside, a gracious Greek Revival in Orwell, VT. See the gallery for more.

Another grand old home in Newport, Rhode Island has hit the market. Braden Keil's Gimme Shelter column in the NY Post alerted me to the fact that Hopedene, a grand home on Newport's famous Cliff Walk is for sale. Hopedene was built in 1889 and is called Peabody and Stearns's most monumental Colonial Revival residence. The home is on six acres and is approached via a private lane to gilt and wrought iron gates, The property includes a main house, a large carriage house with guest quarters, an ocean facing pool and spa, tennis court, gated service entrance, and an FAA approved heliport.

The home itself has gorgeous details including a marble vestibule with a mosaic floor and Italian Renaissance style center hall and a beautiful wood-paneled library. The semi circular ballroom is currently used as a dining room. The home includes remnants of a grander age such as a butler hall, parlor, and cooks and butler's pantries, kitchen library and a flower room. The upper floors are given over to bathrooms and bedrooms, many of which with marble fireplaces. The carriage house includes a game room with a bar, a full bath, a nautical library and French doors opening to bluestone terraces and the pool, and a heated garage. On the second level there are five bedrooms a full kitchen and laundry and bathrooms.

The NY Post reports that the owners are Palm Beach socialites Craig Millard (the retired chairman of Prudential Preferred Properties) and his wife, Michele. This home is listed at $22.5 million.

Another prime Newport, Rhode Island estate has gone on the market. Like Beechwood, another Newport estate we have covered as an estate of the day, Oakwood has a connection to the Astor family. It was the 19th-century summer residence of Mary Alida Astor Carey, the daughter of William Backhouse Astor, a son of John Jacob Astor. The home was built in the late 1860s and was one of the first summer retreats for the rich in the area. It was added to in the 1870s with a three-story tower, music room, ballroom and kitchen wing all added.

The Boston Globe reports that the current owner is J. Brian O'Neill, a Pennsylvania-based real estate developer who bought the property in 2004. He has shepherded it through a redesign that included expanding the master suite and adding a luxury bathroom above the enclosed rear terrace that overlooks the pool. The home has maintained some of its grandeur, the most beautiful room in the house is the dining room that has walls lined with 56 hand-painted Chinese panels, but has also been updated for today's less formal society with a family room and a home theater. Key details in the seven-bedroom home include parquet floors, a Baccarat chandelier in the music room, carved mantels and beautiful woodwork. The nearly six-acre property includes a six-hole putting green, a lawn tennis court, a reflecting pool stocked with koi, a rose garden, and ancient oak and split-leaf beech trees. It is listed at $10.75 million.

Like yesterday's estate, today's home, clear on the other coast of the U.S. comes with a long history. This home in the Historic Hill area of Newport, Rhode Island was built around 1860 and was the home of William Swinburne, a mayor of the city. The home has been recently renovated. The home includes a dining room, formal living room, a newer kitchen done up in stainless appliances and granite counters. The first floor also includes a den and a breakfast room that opens to a porch which overlooks the pool. The bedrooms are on the second and third floors and include a master suite with a fireplaces, sitting room and marble bathroom. The home also comes with a new carriage house that offers two garage spots and guest quarters. Zillow lists this one as having been bought in 2005 for $2,900,000 and their zestimate has it at over $3 million. This one certainly seems like a decent deal at $2,995,000.

Last time I dragged everyone to Newport, Rhode Island for an estate of the day it was a modern home that didn't sit well with most commenters. Let me make it up to you with a classic Newport home which recently went on the market. Seaweed was built in 1905 and was designed by Horace Trumbauer, a Philadelphia architect also known for designing The Elms, one of Newport's classic homes. The 20-room house has all the amazing details you would expect, columns, crown moldings, carved mantels and elegant wainscoting. The solarium is particularly amazing, a curved room with a bank of windows facing the sea.

The home was built for the Gilded Age lifestyle, the main kitchen is in the basement with a dumbwaiter connecting to the first floor. There is a smaller kitchen in the butler's pantry on the first floor. Also the home has 14 bedrooms, six of which are on the third floor and were originally used for servants. The home has a wide lawn and a two-bedroom guest cottage. It is listed at $11.5 million. After the jump, unfortunately there are only a couple of pictures available of this amazing home.

[via Boston Business Journal]

Today's home is an interesting study, a modern home that seems to be currently owned by people not entirely in tune with the modern design scheme. The Newport, RI home was built in 1991 in the International Style of Le Corbusier and has views of the ocean and Narragansett Bay from the rooftop deck. The lower floors offer large entertaining area and private bedroom suites. The top floor includes a second kitchen and seating area. The space is very interesting but the current owners have decorated it with a pastiche of styles, part beach house, part traditional New England and, here and there, a nod to the house's structure with pieces like a Le Corbusier chair (albeit paired with a worn Oriental rug). . It is listed at $2.1 million. After the jump, a dining table that would look wonderful in a classic house but looks out of place here.

Today's estate is more than just an estate, it's a business that gives a peek into what life in Newport during the Gilded Age was like. Beechwood was home to the legendary Astor family. It was build in 1851 by architect Calvert Vaux and landscape designer Andrew Jackson Downing for New York dry-goods merchant Daniel Parish. The Astors hired Richard Morris Hunt, who added the ultimate Gilded Age accessory, a ballroom with mirrored walls, gilt ornamentation and crystal chandeliers. The home is approximately 19,000 square feet with 15 bedrooms. The home currently hosts weddings and Victorian tours and events but could easily be home to one family again, hopefully one that would keep the home from being a relic and yet preserve it's charm. It is listed at $16 million. After the jump, own the legend, be a legend.

Owning a Newport estate on Annandale Road is out of the reach of most people but the lure of this storied region persists. That must be the reason for the price of this brick cottage which is set within the walls of a major Newport estate. The three-bedroom brick cottage has a slate roof and copper detailing. It is set on a one acre lot with an adjoining two acre parcel included. Inside it is charming, with hardwood and slate floors and a greenhouse. The home is listed at $4.395 million which is amazing considering that it is only 2350 square feet, in need of kitchen and bath updates, and has a rather awkward floor plan. After the jump, proximity is everythin.