Collinwood June 2002

As many fans of DARK SHADOWS know, the exteriors of the Collinwood estate were filmed at Seaview Terrace in Newport, Rhode Island. From the MPI video Dark Shadows: On Location:

Seaview Terrace was built in the late 1920s, during the last years of the "Gilded Age," along the famous Cliff Walks of Newport, Rhode Island. The famous Vanderbuilt mansion, Breakers, stands nearby. The house was built up around an existing Victorian structure, although Seaview Terrace itself was patterned after a French Chateau of the renaissance period. Designer Howard Greenlee won an architectural prize for it. The original owner was Edson Bradley, a whiskey distiller, who built the mansion for his wife, Julie.

In the 1930s the house was passed down to Mr. Bradley's daughter. She lived there with her husband, a reverend, until the late 30's. During WWII the house served as army headquarters, and in 1950 it was converted into a summer school for girls. The mansion was purchased by the Martin Carey family in 1974 and renamed Carey Mansion. It has been continually leased to the Salve Regina University.

The building now serves the dual purpose as a dorm and the Music Department's recital/rehearsal hall. Those two sections are separate from each other and one cannot be accessed from the other. From the Salve Regina website:

The American League of Architects awarded Howard Greenley a medal for the design of Mr. and Mrs. Edson Bradley's sprawling French Renaissance manor house, one of the last of Newport's immense Gilded Age summer palaces to be built. Conceptualized in 1924 and built between 1927 and 1929, the Bradley home became known as Seaview Terrace. A pre-existing Elizabethan residence known as Seaview (1885) formerly owned by James Kernochan, was incorporated into Greenley's design. In keeping with its seaside location, the 65-room manor house features turrets, stained-glass windows, high, arching doorways and shell motifs that adorn the façade. Rooms imported intact from France were moved from the Bradley's home in Washington, D.C. to Newport, and reassembled with the chateau constructed around them.

The Bradley's daughter Mrs. Julia Bradley Fox took over the estate and lived there until the late 1930s with her husband Rt. Rev. Herbert Shipman, protestant Episcopal Bishop of New York and World War I Army chaplain. It has been used as World War II Army officers' quarters, an exclusive girls' school and as an exterior set for the cult classic television show Dark Shadows. Purchased in 1974 by the Carey family of New York and renamed Carey Mansion, it currently serves as an academic facility and student residence.

Through the years following the show, many of you have seen various exterior shots from visitors to the grounds. On June 1, 2002, I had the good fortune of being able to photograph not only the exterior but some of the interiors of Carey Mansion. On these next few pages are images and mpeg movies of the trip. Click on any picture to see a larger (640 X 320 pixels, approx 50Kb) version. Unfortunately the entire mansion is in a sad state of disrepair, no doubt from years as student housing. But I hope these shots inspire your imagination into seeing how grand the estate must have been in DS's day.

If you came to this page looking for photos from my first "Trip to Collinwood" in May 2001, they can still be found here.


The main entrance of the Great House. This is where we would see Roger and Sheriff Patterson pull up in the very early episodes.	The doors are very much like those in the series, except these are much larger and heavier. Collinwood is now a smoke free residence (note the ashtray to the lower left). Please extinguish all smoking materials before entering. That goes for you too, Julia!.

Imediately inside the main entrance is a grand foyer. In the distant background, one can see the entrance into the area that would be the drawing room of Collinwood.	Walking into the foyer and looking up to the left are the stained glass windows that have a counterpart in the fictional Collinwood. These, however, are much grander but have no stairway leading to them.

To the left of the foyer is this hallway which, in the past, must have lead to the remainder of the house. The hallway now leads to two rehearsal rooms. This view looks toward the foyer. Off to the right is a stairway to the second floor. This, too, is now sectioned off from the hallway.	Here is a view of the stairway, through a plexiglass wall.

This is a view of the foyer from the edge of the hallway. A western sun was shining through at the time. The main entrance is to the right. Note the gates at the front door: Is it to lock people out or prevent them from leaving?	Here's a better view of the details of the doorway, looking out at an uncharacteristic sunny day for the fictional Collinwood.