Rosecliff, Newport, Rhode Island

In the winter months of 1981, Len Jenshel photographed the Gilded Age mansions of Newport, Rhode Island, and the north shore of Long Island—the so-called summer cottages of the mega-rich. Rosecliff, pictured here, was built from 1900 to 1902 for shipping magnate Hermann Oelrichs by McKim, Mead and White, who modeled it after the Grand Trianon at Versailles. When he first showed these photographs, Jenshel saw in their off-season ghostly ambiance “an allusion to a period in American history that no longer exists”—a statement he feels must now be revised with the current return of conspicuous opulence in the United States.