Arthur Curtiss James

For many years, Arthur Curtiss James was the largest stockholder in the Phelps Dodge organization, but was an “unknown captain of industry”, shunning publicity.

[2] In 1924, he was admitted to the Connecticut Society of the Cincinnati by virtue of his descent from Lieutenant Thomas Phelps, who had served in the Continental Army during the American Revolution.

In addition to the house and gardens, James also built a replica Swiss village on his Newport estate which served as a working farm.

The Swiss village is now the home of the SVF Foundation, also a project of Mrs. Hamilton, which seeks to preserve rare breeds of livestock.

[5] James also purchased a mansion in Sleepy Hollow, New York that had belonged to his cousin Anson Green Phelps Jr. (1818-1858) and his wife Jane Gibson.

After the death of James and his wife, the house stood empty until it was donated to the Phelps Memorial Hospital Association; it is now a convention centre.

Aloha II was built in 1910 at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts, designed by James long time friend and master mariner Peleoman Bezanson and was acquired by the U.S. Navy during the First World War.

Commissioned as USS Aloha in 1917, she served as the flagship for the inspector of Naval Districts, East Coast, Rear Admiral Cameron McRae Winslow.

As James did not own waterfront property in Newport, he purchased a narrow right-of-way off Harrison Avenue leading to Brenton Cove, where he built a dock and a boathouse for Aloha.