Full Text:

NEWPORT RESTORATION FOUNDATION

NEWPORT, R.I. -- At the Annual Meeting of the Newport Restoration Foundation,

the Board of Trustees appointed Pieter Nicholson Roos as Director of the

foundation. Also announced was the transfer of ownership of Rough Point,

currently in Doris Duke's estate, to the Newport Restoration Foundation, whose

trustees are Marion Oates Charles, J. Carter Brown, and Charles A. Dana III.

A social historian with a focus on architecture and the decorative arts, Mr

Roos is known for his expertise in Eighteenth Century colonial history and the

early Republic. Currently, he is the Director of Education at the Newport

Historical Society, a position he has held since March, 1993.

The foundation was founded by Doris Duke in 1968. Miss Duke single-handedly

transformed not just individual structures and properties, but created entire

streetscapes, starting a powerful movement of restoration within the city of

Newport. Today, the foundation consists of approximately 80 restored

Eighteenth Century houses, the Whitehorne Museum, and Prescott Farm.

In addition to Rough Point, Miss Duke's great stone house in Newport, the

first of the large cottages built by the Vanderbilts along Bellevue Avenue

left to her by her father, James B. Duke, she left two other major properties

for public access. Shangri La is the Islamic fantasy of a house and garden

Miss Duke created in Honolulu, Hawaii. And, on her 2,300 acre Duke Farms near

Somerville, N.J., she built an enclosed botanical garden, opened to the public

in her own lifetime. In her will, Miss Duke created the Doris Duke Charitable

Foundation, which has financial responsibility for all three properties.