Newport Casino

The Newport Casino is an athletic complex and recreation center located at 180–200 Bellevue Avenue, Newport, Rhode Island in the Bellevue Avenue/Casino Historic District. Built in 1879–1881 by New York Herald publisher James Gordon Bennett, Jr., it was designed in the Shingle style by the newly formed firm of McKim, Mead & White. The Newport Casino was the firm's first major commission and helped to establish the firm's national reputation. Built as a social club, it included courts for both lawn tennis and court tennis, facilities for other games, such as squash and lawn bowling, club rooms for reading, socializing, card-playing, and billiards, shops, and a convertible theater and ballroom. It became a center of Newport's social life during the Gilded Age through the 1920s. The casino was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1987. The complex, which was the site of the earliest American lawn tennis championships, has been the site of the International Tennis Hall of Fame since 1954.