For decades, the most anomalous block on Bellevue Avenue has been the one you drive past without thinking: a low-slung retail plaza sitting between the International Tennis Hall of Fame and the historic corridor heading toward the mansions. It doesn't look like the rest of Bellevue. That's because it wasn't supposed to be there.
In 1957, a developer tore down the Stone Villa — a three-story Italianate manor built in 1833 by Scottish stonemason Alexander McGregor and later owned by publisher James Gordon Bennett Jr. — and replaced it with the Bellevue Gardens Shopping Plaza. The original villa had been positioned so its front door aligned precisely with the Casino's porticoed entrance across the street. For nearly seventy years, that relationship has been missing.
This summer, two things are happening on Bellevue simultaneously that are both, in different ways, about putting it back.
Construction Starts June 1 at 181 Bellevue
On May 22, Procaccianti Companies and its hospitality affiliate TPG Hotels & Resorts announced that site work on The Bellevue Hotel will begin June 1. The project, designed by Centerbrook Architects, will rise on the Bellevue Gardens Shopping Plaza site at 181 Bellevue Ave.
The design is deliberate about what it's restoring. The new hotel's entrance will once again align with the Newport Casino across the street. The building will stand three stories — the same height as the Stone Villa — and will defer slightly in height to its shingle-style neighbor. Juliet balconies on the second and third floors will face two interior open-air gardens. When it opens, likely in 2027, the block will read the way Bennett's original vision intended.
A few things residents will want to know before the summer:
- The retail plaza stays open throughout construction. Procaccianti has confirmed that the Bellevue Gardens shops and parking lot will remain accessible while site and enablement work is phased in.
- Phase one is underground. Work begins with new water lines and stormwater management systems — the visible disruption to the street will be limited at the start.
- The hotel is 90 rooms, with a restaurant, spa, pub, gym, and underground parking that will roughly double the current capacity on site.
The development company is not new to this stretch of Newport County. Procaccianti also owns the Newport Beach Hotel and Suites in Middletown and acquired Conanicut Marina in Jamestown in 2022. The Bellevue represents their most visible bet yet on Aquidneck Island.
The Gilded Age Showed Up on the Same Block
Two weeks before the construction announcement, film crews for HBO's The Gilded Age were confirmed on location in Newport for Season 4. The cast — including Carrie Coon, Christine Baranski, Cynthia Nixon, Morgan Spector, Louisa Jacobson, and Denée Benton — was spotted at The Breakers on April 22. The Rhode Island Film & TV Office had announced Newport filming would begin in April; the production had wrapped its New York locations and moved to the Ocean State on schedule.
The show, created by Lord Julian Fellowes, is set in 1880s New York and Newport. In previous seasons, it used the International Tennis Hall of Fame — the Newport Casino, built by McKim, Mead & White in the Victorian Shingle Style, and the direct architectural counterpart to the Stone Villa — as a central location. Ochre Court on the Salve Regina University campus served as the interior of a British estate last season and is expected to return. This spring, for the first time, production arrived before the summer tourist peak, meaning smaller crowds and a quieter window for residents who found themselves sharing Bellevue with a period drama.
"The success of The Gilded Age has turned the Newport Mansions into Hollywood stars," said Trudy Coxe, CEO and Executive Director of the Preservation Society of Newport County. "The show has not only drawn new visitors to the mansions and increased interest in the historical Gilded Age, it also has been a rewarding partnership with HBO, supporting our efforts to preserve these historic house properties."
What the show has done for the Preservation Society — drawing audiences to the physical places it depicts — is structurally similar to what The Bellevue Hotel is doing for the block itself. One is reconstructing the 1880s on film. The other is reconstructing the 1830s in stone and steel. The International Tennis Hall of Fame sits between both projects, unchanged, as it always has.
Why the Timing Matters More Than It Looks
Here is the thing that gets lost when these two stories are covered separately: the architectural relationship the new hotel is designed to restore is the same one the show has been filming around for four seasons.
The Newport Casino — now the Tennis Hall of Fame — was commissioned by James Gordon Bennett Jr., who owned the Stone Villa across the street. The two buildings were designed to face each other. McKim, Mead & White built the Casino in 1880. Bennett had the Villa from at least the late 19th century. The Bellevue Hotel is, by Procaccianti and Centerbrook's own description, "realizing Mr. Bennett's original vision for a grand social destination along Bellevue Avenue."
The Gilded Age has been filming the 1880s version of that vision. The hotel will be the 2027 version of it. The 1957 interruption — the strip mall — is the anomaly, not the rule.
For Newport residents who have watched both stories unfold in the same spring, the coincidence is worth understanding clearly: what's coming to Bellevue Avenue isn't new development in the conventional sense. It's a correction.
Thames Street Also Had a Busy Spring
While Bellevue drew the larger headline, What's Up Newp has tracked two meaningful openings on Thames that are worth knowing about before the season peaks.
Claw & Hammer opened April 4 at 527 Thames Street, the address longtime residents know as the former home of Scales & Shells. Heritage Group — the Newport-founded hospitality company behind 17 restaurants and two inns across New England — developed the concept as an elevated seafood experience built around a signature stone crab program and a raw bar. The space spans two levels; the ground floor features brass fixtures, cream leather banquettes, and a raw bar with a kitchen pass-through. The second floor offers a more private setting suited to quieter dinners and events. Bar opens at 4 p.m., kitchen at 5 p.m., daily.
Earlier in the year, Jo's American Bistro at 24 Memorial Boulevard West reopened under new ownership after Heritage Restaurant Group completed its acquisition of the property in January. Founder Joann Carlson, whose family's Newport restaurant history runs back to a fish packing company on the wharfs, stepped back after more than four decades in the industry. The leadership team stayed in place; the dining room reopened the same evening the acquisition closed.
Two openings, one group, in a three-month window: Heritage Group is now a significant presence on both ends of the downtown corridor.
The summer on Bellevue will look different than last year's. There will be construction equipment near the plaza, and at certain points there may be film equipment near the mansions. Neither is cause for detour. The retail shops stay open, the avenue stays accessible, and the Tennis Hall of Fame — the building that has anchored this block since 1880 — is going to have the architectural companion it was designed to face back by 2027.
If you're thinking about how these changes affect property values or the long-term character of the neighborhood, that's a conversation worth having in detail. Eric Kirton at Lila Delman Compass has spent his career on Aquidneck Island watching these blocks evolve. Request a private consultation to talk through what you're seeing and what it means for you.
