Preservation Society Hires Welcome Center Builder

NEWPORT, RI — Behan Brothers has won the contract to build the Welcome Center on the grounds of The Breakers, the Preservation Society has announced. They will be the prime contractor on the $5.4 million project, which is expected to start soon and last a year.

“Behan Bros. provided the best value and strongest plan for the construction of both the remarkable building that has been designed and the revival of the landscape,” said Trudy Coxe, CEO and Executive Director of the Preservation Society. “All three finalists were Rhode Island firms and all three proposals were exciting, but it is especially satisfying to be able to award this work to a Newport company.”

The Preservation Society's lawyers went to the state Supreme Court to battle a group of residents opposed to the Welcome Center. Several Newport architects, as well as Vanderbilt family members, say it should be constructed somewhere other than on the property grounds because it will diminish the property. However, Behan Brothers is no stranger to controversial projects. They also built the St. Clare nursing home expansion on Spring Street and the massive block long expansion at the International Tennis Hall of Fame. The latter obliterated a once-treasured view down Memorial Boulevard.

"The design provides for indoor ticketing, expanded modern comfort facilities, and refreshment service," the Preservation Society said. The construction will be supervised by Preservation Society Properties Director Curt Genga.

“This is a major milestone toward the creation of the kind of world class hospitality that we feel a National Historic Landmark should provide for its visitors,” said Monty Burnham, Chairman of the Board of the Preservation Society. “With this step we move toward offering our visitors the hospitality they deserve, and that they enjoy at museums and historic sites around the world.”

The welcome center will only operate during museum hours and will serve only ticketed museum visitors and Preservation Society members. Each year, The Breakers is visited by 450,000 people from all 50 states and more than 100 countries.

“The landscape design is of principal importance," said Doug Reed of the nationally recognized landscape architecture firm of Reed Hildebrand, which created the landscape plan. "Preserving the existing massive beech trees and other specimen trees on the north side of the driveway requires a rehabilitation of the landscape and serpentine path. We are rehabilitating the visual and spatial character of the original Bowditch design, adapting what was a sunny, colorful flower garden to one that will thrive in the shade of the existing canopy trees.”