ida lewis yacht club photos

Newport Spotlight: Ida Lewis Yacht Club (ILYC)

by Ross Cann | Sep 19, 2023 | Articles , Historical , Newport Spotlight

Aerial view of the Ida Lewis Yacht Club (Photo Credits: PJ Dougherty)

When a city is as old as Newport, Rhode Island, which was founded in 1639, many of the buildings and structures of the city have had to function for many different purposes over time. This blog has noted how many buildings have been recognized as National Historic Landmarks and how even more have been added to the National Register of Historic Places , which is nearly as high of a recognition. Today, Newport Harbor is home to five different yacht clubs. These range from the extremely stately Harbour Court clubhouse of the New York Yacht Club (NYYC) to much more humble facilities. One of the most interesting of those facilities is home to the Ida Lewis Yacht Club (ILYC), which was named for the lighthouse and island constructed in the 1930’s used by Ida Lewis, one of America’s earliest female “superheroes.”

Ida Lewis (1842-1911)

The original light house was constructed in 1853 on the Lime Rock, the largest of a series of outcroppings about 900 feet from the Newport shore. It started as a tiny house used for the lighthouse keeper when they had to stay overnight and tend to the facility. Hosea Lewis took the post of the first keeper in 1853 and held the position until his death in 1911. His daughter Ida provided her capable assistance to him during this time, slowly taking on more and more of the responsibilities from her father. At the time of his passing, Ida became the first female lighthouse keeper in the country. As early as 1869, she started to become famous for her daring saves of seamen lost in the waters of the harbor. Harpers Weekly and the New York Tribune called her the “Heroine of Lime Rock”, and published tales of the 18 lives she is officially credited with saving.

Ida Lewis Yacht Club Viewed From The Docks

The functional lighthouse lost its purpose as automatic and electrical light replaced the gas and oil lights of earlier periods. By the 1920s the remnants of the rock outcroppings were sold to the “Narragansett Bay Regatta Association”, which was compromised of a group of experienced yachtsmen. In 1928, the officially christened a new facility called the “Ida Lewis Yacht Club” in honor of the longtime lighthouse keeper and American heroine.

A long wooden walkway was constructed to connect the rock outcroppings to the shore, while docks for members boats were built off the walkway over time. During the America’s Cup eras and before the NYYC purchased Harbour Court, the facility let the club share the grounds and had their burgee fly off the auxiliary flagpole. In 1988, the facility was added to the Registry of Historic Places for its historic importance.

Ida Lewis Yacht Club Viewed From The Water

Even though it is a modest facility, the ILYC represents an important chapter of Newport history when brave men and women like Ida Lewis were tasked with keeping seamen safe and occasionally having to step in to save them during dangerous and stormy conditions. Today the yacht club is an exceptional example of adaptive reuse and a lovely place to dock a boat or watch a sunset from the middle of the beautiful Newport Harbor.

Looking out from the Ida Lewis Yacht Club

Ross Cann, RA, AIA, LEED AP, is an author, historian, and practicing architect living and working in Newport, RI. He holds degrees with honor in Architecture from Yale, Cambridge, and Columbia Universities. He is an avid sailor and race committee member. He is also a longstanding member of the ILYC and its Racing Committee.

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Ida Lewis Yacht Club

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Wellington Ave

Newport, RI 02840

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Long walk on a pier to get to the club which sits on a rocky island in Newport harbor. Extremely well kept grounds and buildings, although smallish, especially compared to the NYYC sort of next door, on the harbor. Nice folks

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U.S. Lighthouse Society News

In support of lighthouse preservation, education, history and research, celebrating ida lewis.

Today is Ida Lewis’s 175th birthday. Google has marked the occasion with a google doodle . Ida was famous in her day for her numerous lifesaving rescues at Lime Rock Light Station in Newport, Rhode Island. She received a gold lifesaving medal in 1881 and Lime Rock was renamed in her honor in 1924.

Idawalley Zorada Lewis, called Ida, was born in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1842. Her father, Captain Hosea Lewis, was a coast pilot whose health was declining. In 1853 he became the first keeper of nearby Lime Rock beacon on a tiny island a third of a mile from the shore of Newport. At first there was only a temporary lantern and a rough shed that provided shelter when the keeper was on the island in bad weather. Lewis’s family remained in the old part of Newport until 1857, when a Greek Revival building with a hip roof was constructed on the island. Lewis moved his family into the lighthouse when Ida, his eldest child, was 15.

Hosea Lewis had been at Lime Rock less than four months when he was stricken by a disabling stroke. Like many wives and daughters of lighthouse keepers before and after, Ida expanded her domestic duties, now increased by the care of her invalid father and a seriously ill sister, to include the care of the light—filling the lamp with oil at sundown and again at midnight, trimming the wick, and extinguishing the light at dawn. All these responsibilities precluded further formal education for Ida.

Since Lime Rock was completely surrounded by water, the only way to reach the mainland was by boat. In the mid-nineteenth century it was highly unusual for a woman to handle a boat, but Ida, the oldest of four children, rowed her siblings to school every weekday and fetched needed supplies from the town. The wooden boat was heavy, but she became very skillful in handling it. (An article in Harper’s Weekly , written after Ida had made several daring rescues, debated whether it was “feminine” for women to row boats, but concluded that none but a “donkey” would consider it “unfeminine” to save lives.) Ida was also reputed to be the best swimmer in all Newport.

Ida’s skill at the oars was regularly tested. During her first year at Lime Rock, four young men who were out sailing nearly drowned. One of them had foolishly shimmied up the mast and rocked the boat to tease his companions. The boat capsized, and four boys who couldn’t swim clung to the overturned hull, shouting for help. Ida heard them and rowed to their rescue. In their terror, they almost dragged her overboard, but she pulled all four over the stern into her boat and returned them to land. This was only the first of a number of rescues that later made Ida famous.

Ida and her mother Zorada tended the Lime Rock Light for her father from 1857 until 1872, when he died. Her mother was appointed keeper until 1879, although Ida continued to do the keeper’s work. Then Ida received the official appointment and her own salary ($500 a year). She continued at her post until her own death in 1911. On the night of her death the bells on all the vessels anchored in Newport Harbor were tolled in her memory.

On September 28, 1881,William Windom, secretary of the Light-House Board, wrote to Ida Lewis as follows:

I have the honor to transmit herewith the gold medal which has been awarded to you under authority of the Act of Congress of June 20, 1874, in recognition of your services in rescuing from drowning at the peril of your life, two soldiers belonging to the garrison of Fort Adams.

It appears from the evidence submitted to the Department in this connection, that on February 4th last, these men were crossing between Lime Rock light-house and the fort and the ice, being dangerously weak and rotten, gave way under their feet, and let them in. Hearing their cries for help, you ran from the light-house with a rope, one end of which you flung to them and standing upon the ice, in imminent danger of its giving way beneath you, and also of being dragged into the water, both men having hold of the line, you succeeded in pulling them out, one after the other. The rescue of one you effected entirely unaided; the second man you hauled from the broken ice, with the help of your brother, who arrived at the spot in time to render this assistance.

It is the testimony of the rescued men, and of the several eye-witnesses, that in this act you placed your life in great peril.

The papers before the Department in this case, cite the instances of no less than thirteen persons saved by you from drowning, at dates anterior to this occurrence, and it is stated that there are many more who do not appear in the record. These deeds have won for you a national distinction, and it is peculiarly appropriate that you should receive the national life-saving medal in commemoration of your brave acts as a life-saver, while it is an occasion for added satisfaction that such a memorial of unquestionable heroism should have been won by a woman.   (Source: National Archives, Record Group 26, Letterbook 553.)

In 1927 the Bureau of Lighthouses removed the lens from the lantern and placed an automated beacon on a skeleton tower in front of the lighthouse. This light continued in service until 1963, when it was deactivated by the Coast Guard. Later the Newport Yacht Club bought the lighthouse and obtained permission from the Coast Guard to put a light back in the old lantern and maintain it as a private aid to navigation. Although adaptively used by the yacht club (and renamed the Ida Lewis Yacht Club), the building is virtually unaltered from the time that Ida Lewis lived there.

In 1995 the Coast Guard launched the first of a series of new keeper-class 175-foot coastal buoy tenders and named it Ida Lewis .

Submitted by Candace Clifford using excerpts from Women Who Kept the Lights: An Illustrated History of Female Lighthouse Keepers (Alexandria, Virginia: Cypress Communications, 2013), February 25, 2017

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U.S. Lighthouse Society News  is produced by the U.S. Lighthouse Society to support lighthouse preservation, history, education and research. Please consider  joining the U.S. Lighthouse Society  if you are not already a member. If you have items of interest to the lighthouse community and its supporters, please email them to  [email protected] .

Candace was the US Lighthouse Society historian from 2016 until she passed away in August 2018.  For 30 years, her work involved lighthouse history.  She worked with the National Park Service and the Council of American Maritime Museums. She was a noted author and was considered the most knowledgable person on lighthouse information at the National Archives.  Books by Candace Clifford include: Women who Kept the Lights: a History of Thirty-eight Female Lighthouse Keepers ,  Mind the Light Katie, and Maine Lighthouses, Documentation of their Past .

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RI - Newport: Ida Lewis Yacht Club/Lime Rock Lighthouse

The lime rock lighthouse was established in 1854 and lit up newport harbor until its discontinuation in 1927. in 1924, it was renamed the ida lewis lighthouse, named after keeper, ms. idawalley zorada lewis. the name remained after the lighthouse closed when it became the ida lewis yacht club, a private yacht club.   a newport native, ida tended limerock with her mother, for her ailing father, captain hosea lewis, from 1857 until his death in 1872. her mother was appointed keeper until 1879, although ida continued to do the keeper's work. then ida received the official appointment and her own salary ($500 a year). she continued at her post until her own death in 1911. because of her many rescues (officially credited with 18 lives, although unofficial reports put it as high as 25), ida lewis became the best-known lighthouse keeper of her day, earning visits from president ulysses s. grant and vice president schuyler colfax, numerous national press features, and the carnegie hero fund benefaction. ida's last recorded rescue occurred when she was 63 years old.   national register #87001700 (1988).

Ida Lewis Yacht Club: Beyond its on-its-face beauty, a tale of history

The Ida Lewis Yacht Club is marked by the telltale white awning just past King Park in Newport. Self-labeled as family-oriented, Ida Lewis is a small, private yacht club with beautiful views of Bowen’s Wharf and Narragansett Bay. However, beyond the on-its-face beauty, the yacht club’s history dates back to the 1850s.

Right off the coast of Newport lies the Lime Rocks, which were used in the 1850s as a source of lime for Newport buildings. A lighthouse – today known as the Lime Rocks Lighthouse – and “shed” for its keeper was installed on one of the rocks in 1853. The keeper’s “shed,” which appears to be a full-fledged home, somehow balances on the rocks and has remained standing through many tropical storms and hurricanes. Today, it serves as the clubhouse of the Ida Lewis Yacht Club. 

Ida Lewis’s half-brother was the lighthouse’s first keeper, followed by her father. She became its keeper upon her father’s death and entered her new role in stride. She quickly became known for successfully making countless rescues from the treacherous water near the Lime Rocks. On paper, she saved 18 people during her 42-year stint as keeper although she likely saved many more lives as well. 

Now, a wooden walkway connects the house on the Lime Rocks to the mainland Ida Lewis Yacht Club entrance, allowing club members to access the clubhouse without having to boat over or brave the waters from which Ida Lewis saved so many. This year, the club is celebrating its 95th anniversary, commemorating the year in which the club was formalized after most of the rocks and structures on them were sold to the Narragansett Bay Regatta Association for $7,200 in the mid-1920s.  

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Ida Lewis Yacht Club

• Wellington Avenue, Newport, RI 02840
• (401) 846-1969

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