Chetwode (1903)
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- Storrs Wells - Astor Estate
- Architect: Horace Trumbauer
- Located on Bellevue Avenue between Victoria Avenue and Ruggles Avenue
- Demolished: 1973
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A limestone-clad brick Louis XIV style ch?teau, Chetwode was built for Mrs. William Storrs Wells (n?e Annie Raynor) of New York by the Philadelphia architect Horace Trumbauer. With formal landscaping by Achille Duchene of Paris and opulent interior reception rooms by Allard & Sons, decorators, of Paris and New York, Chetwode became one of the most lavish villas ever erected in  Newport. The white and gold paneled salons were in Louis XV and Louis XVI taste based on the King?s private apartments at Versailles. The dining room, library, and morning room contained old master paintings set into the wall decoration. Occupied by Mrs. Wells  until the 1930 season, the estate was then leased to A.J. Drexel Biddle Jr., for three years, and then sold, furnished, on January 23, 1934 to John Jacob Astor III for $150,000. The estate comprised a garage-stable block, gardener?s cottage, greenhouse, five acres of formal gardens, and grounds extending beyond Coggeshall Avenue to Carroll Avenue. The twenty-one year old Astor heir had just come of age and was soon to marry Miss Ellen Tuck French. Doris Duke Cromwell later sublet Chetwode for the 1937 season.
Five years after divorcing, the J. J. Astors placed the estate and contents on the auction block and it was sold in October of 1948 for $70,000 to James C. O?Donnell, a Washington investor. His daughter, Mrs. Florence O?Donnell Maher, sold the estate to the Texas-based Church of Christ for $45,000, in  1954, for use as a church and center for servicemen. In June of 1957, the Church sold Chetwode for $40,000 to Thomas Diab and John P. Curran, Boston developers, for conversion to apartments. Finally, in November of 1958, the estate was sold, again for $40,000, to Miss Phoebe Warren Andrews of New York who, as President of the Newport Art League, held exhibitions and sponsored an art school in the house.  During the morning of January 29, 1972, a chimney fire spread through the three floors of the villa causing devastating damage. Much of the French paneling and several mantels are known to have been salvaged and are today dispersed between shops, restaurants, and private collections in Newport, Boston, New Jersey, and Paris. Chetwode, one of the chief glories of Newport, was razed in May of 1973. The outlying acreage along Ruggles to Carroll Avenues had become, after 1948, the setting for multiple residential subdivisions. The surviving five acres of gardens sold in August of 1976 for $96,000 for development into a six-lot subdivision and the surviving stable-garage building was converted into condominiums.
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