The story of Taylor Swift's Holiday House from 'the Last Great American Dynasty'

Table Of Content

• This is High Watch in Rhode Island, Taylor Swift's seaside mansion.
• The Outrageous Life of Rebekah Harkness, Taylor Swift’s High-Society Muse
• Lady Gaga cancels sister's bachelorette party at LES club The Box after pressure over sex harassment suit
• She reportedly paid for the mansion by wiring $17.75 million in cash to a realtor in 2013.
• Taylor Swift was back at Watch Hill for a Fourth of July bash. Here's who came with her.

In the same year, the "1989" star's then-boyfriend Calvin Harris posted his first Instagram photo of Taylor while she was cooking BBQ on the patio at her Rhode Island house. The 11,000-square-foot estate was built on the highest point of Watch Hill, an affluent coastal neighborhood in the town of Wesley, Rhode Island. To the left, it belongs to Ocean House, a spectacular (and spectacularly expensive) hotel originally built 150 years ago, where celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, Jessica Simpson, and the late, great Regis Philbin were seen.

This is High Watch in Rhode Island, Taylor Swift's seaside mansion.

From all the stunning coastal scenery to all the chef-crafted cuisine, all the stately mansions to all the inspiring art, all the centuries of history to all the welcoming locals, a visit to the Ocean State is one you won’t soon forget. “On summer days, you’ll usually see several young girls perched across the street, taking photos,” says Donna Simmons of Mott & Chace Sotheby’s International Realty. The renowned singer-songwriter also talked about the couple's wedding and the home they picked and called the "Holiday House," where they hosted parties.

The Outrageous Life of Rebekah Harkness, Taylor Swift’s High-Society Muse

Another local landmark is the historic Ocean House hotel, which – situated next to Swift’s house - has often served as handy overspill accommodation for her party guests. Harkness was one of the richest women in America, and her own social circle of debutantes was known as the “Bitch Pack”. She inherited her late husband William’s Standard Oil fortune when he died a few years after they bought the oceanfront house set on five acres. Sneak peeks of her private beachfront and her white kitchen were also seen in the snaps she shared. Some photos from Swift and her friends through the years gave the singer's followers a glimpse into her luxurious property.

Lady Gaga cancels sister's bachelorette party at LES club The Box after pressure over sex harassment suit

She was released on $1,000 personal recognizance and scheduled for a District Court arraignment on July 14, according to court records. The Instagram post of Swift and her "girlies" in Watch Hill "sittin', there by the water" comes after the songstress dropped the re-release of her 2010 album at midnight on Friday. "Speak Now (Taylor's Version)" is the third in her series of re-recordings since the sale of her master recordings in 2020. The album features the 14 original tracks (including singles "Mine," "Back to December," "Mean," "Sparks Fly," "Ours," and "The Story of Us) plus the two bonus tracks and six "vault" tracks with Fall Out Boy and Hayley Williams of Paramore. Haim shared some of the photos on their Instagram account Haim the Band, captioning them "single summer." Swift’s house – which has eight bedrooms and 10.5 bathrooms, according to its online particulars – is one of several properties she owns in a portfolio said to be worth $81m.

Snowden family

Her grandfather founded the St. Louis Union Trust Company, ensuring she grew up comfortably. She attended finishing school at the Fermata School for Girls in Aiken, South Carolina, whose other alums included Roosevelts and Auchinclosses. According to Blue Blood, a book by Craig Unger, Harkness wrote in her scrapbook that at Fermata, she set out ‘‘do everything bad.” An example of her mischievousness? (Perhaps this is a tale that inspired the Swift lyric, “She had a marvelous time ruining everything.”) Fittingly, she and her finishing school friends dubbed themselves the Bitch Pack.

The coastal mansion, located at 16 Bluff Avenue in Watch Hill, Rhode Island, was built in 1930 and sits on the highest point in the coastal town. The 11,744-square-foot holiday house boasts 700 feet of shoreline and offers sweeping views of Little Narragansett Bay, per Business Insider. According to See Westerly, Watch Hill was used as a lookout during battles dating back before the French and Indian War.

Swift was so fascinated with Rebekah that another song on Folklore is titled “Betty,” a clear reference to Rebekah Harkness’s nickname. Several other friends of the super star have also shared photos inside the home’s white kitchen. Although the private pop star, 34, hasn’t shared many images of the vacation property herself, several of her A-list pals have given glimpses inside the home while uploading images from the lavish bash — known as Taymerica — to their social media over the years. A Colonial-style mansion, High Watch sits on a 5-acre (2.0 ha) seafront estate that includes a private beach. The estate is situated atop Watch Hill's namesake hillock, which was used as a strategic lookout point during some battles in the history of the United States. We pack a lot of incredible experiences into a state that’s only 37 miles wide and 48 miles long.

Taylor Swift was back at Watch Hill for a Fourth of July bash. Here's who came with her.

The mansion was once owned by Rebekah Harkness, a high-profile socialite who famously married into the Standard Oil fortune. What she failed to mention at the time though, is how much she related to the woman who famously owned the house before her. Taylor Swift’s 2020 album, Folklore, came as a surprise to everyone — including the artist’s celebrity friends, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, who had cautiously guarded the name of their third daughter since she was born, only to have Swift’s album reveal the name in a track named after her. The medial sales price of a single-family home in Providence, for example, climbed from $337,250 to $373,750 in March, a 10.82% jump.

Step Inside Taylor Swift's Eight Multimillion-Dollar Homes - ELLE Decor

Step Inside Taylor Swift's Eight Multimillion-Dollar Homes.

Posted: Tue, 03 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Delevingne and others took to Instagram to show the fun they were having.

They don’t build ’em like they used to – and you’ll understand that the moment you enter one of Rhode Island’s breathtaking historic homes. From Colonial-era cottages oozing charm and history to waterfront Gilded Age Newport Mansions that were once the summer homes of the nation’s wealthiest families. These dozens of buildings – some serve as museums, some have become restaurants, hotels, and resorts, while others still serve as private homes – are must-sees. Swift drops in to this discreet community a few times a year and has been spotted frequenting its age-old local institutions, including the ice cream parlour, “although she doesn’t wait in line like the rest of us,” says Marantz.

Harkness may have filled her pool with Champagne and not flamingo and unicorn pool floats, but she brought in the celebrities of her day, and she installed a dome on her lawn as a rehearsal space for her ballet company. In my head, that dome looks exactly like the enormous 27-foot-tall waterslide Swift had at her 2016 extravaganza. The parallels between the two of them are strong enough that it’s hard not to hear the lyric, “Rebekah gave up on the Rhode Island set forever,” as Swift’s own feelings toward my home state. Back in 2015, several of her famous friends — including Gigi Hadid, Joe Jonas and Martha Hunt — shared photos from the fun-filled weekend to their Instagrams. There are rarely more than about houses for sale in Watch Hill at any time, and the average sales price in the past year is $5.4m. One headline sale recently was the house two doors down from Swift on Bluff Avenue, which sold for $17.6m “to a buyer who lives two hours away and wanted a family retreat on the beach,” says Simmons.

In the above and below verse, Taylor suggests that she doesn’t care about people’s opinions that she’s ruining everything because they’re just people’s opinions and false perceptions of her, she just enjoys her life how she wants to enjoy it and is having such a ‘marvellous time’ doing so. The above verse is packed with a lot of lyrical details and history, as it reveals Rebekah was not a woman to get on your bad side, as she dyed a neighbour’s door ‘key lime green’ after an argument’. Then the story gradually moves to the present, as it is revealed that after Rebekah passed, Holiday House was left unlived in for fifty years, free of woman who were called mad for being different, for their love lives or for their habits, until Taylor reveals she eventually brought Rebekah’s house for herself. This verse (above) reveals that Rebekah’s marriage started off with a charming wedding, and that they came from new money, and they originally brought Holiday House as a place to begin their married life together and were known for through loud but tasteful parties. The last line reveals that perhaps the people of the town they lived in, blamed Rebekah (perhaps they blamed her because people assume it is the woman’s fault, and not the man’s fault but in this case, it was simply a medical issue that was out of theirs and anyone’s control.

Meanwhile, Martha also posted several snaps of the home’s exterior, showing the tiled patio with white lounge chairs as well as the pool area — which was decked out with inflatable toys and a slide. The home, which has eight fireplaces and 10 bathrooms, sits on 5.23 acres and features a sprawling back patio with a massive pool. Taylor Swift bought an 11,000-square-foot estate in Rhode Island back in 2013 for a whopping $17.75 million — which she reportedly paid for in cash. According to the celebrity insiders at Page Six, “Even though Gigi and Bradley have their own properties in New York, they wanted somewhere more private to spend time getting to know each other and Taylor was only too happy to help,” an insider said.

In 2015, High Watch inspired a proposal by the Governor of Rhode Island to impose a luxury tax on expensive secondary homes in the state. In 2017, Swift was sued over her decision to build a seawall on the beach as plaintiffs argued the beach had been dedicated to the public over the years and Swift had no ownership of it; the courts ruled in Swift's favor. L'Officiel has listed High Watch as one of the most expensive celebrity homes in the Americas.

The most expensive private home in Rhode Island,[2] High Watch has been owned by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift since 2013 and is a subject of publicity and media attention, mostly known for being the venue of Swift's annual Independence Day parties, attended by a range of celebrities. Throughout the song, Taylor draws regular but subtle comparisons between herself and the former owner of her house (holiday house) – Rebekah Harkness. In the above and next verse, Taylor talks about herself as the current owner of Holiday House, and the similarities in the lifestyle she shares with Rebekah.