Doris Duke papers on the Rough Point residence, 1922-1997

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Doris Duke papers on the Rough Point residence, 1922-1997

http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/uadukedorisroughpoint/

Rough Point was purchased by James B. Duke in 1922. When Duke passed away in 1925, he left the home to his 12-year-old daughter Doris, subject to Mrs. (Nanaline) Duke's life interest. Although Nanaline Duke continued to spend her summers at Rough Point, in the early 1950s she took up permanent residence in New York City and emptied Rough Point of all its furnishings. It was around this time that Doris Duke once again became a frequent visitor to Newport and turned her attention to renovating and refurnishing the family estate. Upon her death in 1993, Miss Duke bequeathed the estate to the Newport Restoration Foundation with the directive that it be opened to the public as a museum. The collection primarily documents the expenses and daily operations of running, renovating, and maintaining the Rough Point estate, and includes invoices and receipts for repairs and renovations to the residence, correspondence and memoranda relating to routine matters of the residence, expenses, inventories of furniture, fixtures, and other household items, and several appraisals of the residence and its household effects. A majority of the architectural records detail alterations and additions to the Rough Point residence as designed by the Horace Trumbauer firm.

7.8 Linear Feet; approximately 2,400 Items

eng,

David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library

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SNAC Resource ID: 6360433

Related Entities

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Duke, Doris, 1912-1993

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6m33mhr (person)

Born on November 22, 1912, Doris Duke was the only child of James Buchanan (J.B.) Duke, a founder of the American Tobacco Company and Duke Energy Company and a benefactor of Duke University, and Nanaline Holt Duke. Inheriting a bulk of her father's estate in 1925, which included Duke Farms in New Jersey, Rough Point in Newport, R.I., and a mansion in New York City, Doris was soon dubbed by the press as "the richest girl in the world." Although Doris did her best to live a private life, she carri...