Watchill, Rhode Island - Being a boy from the Doornfontein hood, the closest I got to the sea growing up was sitting on a flooded mine dump. So when I hit East London, as a tennis player for the first time, I was riveted by real waves and would train on the beach every day, even in a gale-force wind. Later, on the US Circuit, I thought beaches to rival the Cape only existed in California, where we played the big tournaments. What an eye-opener to discover long stretches of sensational Atlantic seaboard, in Watchill, Rhode Island.
Unlike Newport, which thanks to the Kennedys and The Great Gatsby is now as commercial as ice cream at a fairground, you would never find Watchill on a map, much less know it exists, unless you arrived by boat, or got washed ashore in a storm. A resident tennis mate, who has a great eye for everything except line calls, insisted we make this detour, right before the Connecticut border. Watchill is a small community of elite, living in jaw-dropping mansions perched on a hill behind a beach, stretching from a lighthouse and a harbour, to a glacial lake.
Rhode Island has eight of these extraordinary salt water marshes, which are unique to the state. The area empties into a ghost town in winter, except for the posh parade at its famous hotel, The Ocean House. But it remains a draw-card for nature lovers, sports lovers – in fact any type of lover – over the summer months.
Scientist Alfred Einstein was a regular visitor, invited by local landed gentry to play music and exercise his brilliant brain in these brilliant surroundings.
The Weekipaug Inn: Pick anywhere along the East Coast and an Indian tribe has been there before you; in this neck of the woods it’s the Wampanaug. Every path, pond and overturned stone has an Indian sounding name and a Dances With Wolves story attached.
After the original old inn, dating back to 1899, was hit by a hurricane as vicious as Sandy, in 1938, the original owners decided to push it back to higher ground, where it now hugs the west shore of the Quonochontaug Pond.
This environmental landmark, which drives me mental trying to pronounce, is resident hotelier Chuck Royce’s latest venture. The outdoor Jacuzzi and New England-style bed of our suite overlooking the lake, looked pretty inviting and came complete with a bird book, binoculars and a box of biscuits.
It wasn’t long before, lying there, I was mesmerised by the blazing autumn colours and Block Island view.
It was the beginning of the clam fishing season, so not only were there fresh clams on the Sea Room menu, and clambakes the next day, but I had a bird’s eye view of a fleet of boats dropping baskets overboard to catch them.
With its private beach, jetty, swimming pool, salt-water marsh dripping in wildlife and selection of native fish barbecued and devoured to the sound of a guitar, in front of a roaring fire, the Weekipaug is one Indian hang-out worth straying off the beaten path to find.
The Ocean House: This is the sister property to Weekipaug and the latest American addition to Relais & Chateaux. It boasts one of the best seaside locations on the East Coast since the turn of the century. Guests, from as far as the Mid-West and a little richer than the indigenous ones, used to step off steamships with trunks in tow and wade up the beach to the wide Victorian veranda of this magnificent hotel, moving in for months on end.
Owner Charles Royce recently restored the entire building, destroyed in a fire, to its former glory and being a keen art collector, installed some unusual collections by quirky European caricaturists, like Sem and Bemelmans.
I was then stopped dead in my tracks by the sound of the smooth chords of Summer Time wafting through the bay window. It turned out to be jazz legend Al Copley, bringing to life a gleaming grand piano, in the slick open-plan bar of Seasons Restaurant.
Copley lives in Watchill and has married a glamorous South African; together they have toured the world playing with Count Basie, Quincy Jones and a galaxy of other music glitterati; Copley is a regular at the Montreux festival in Switzerland. You would never find him playing in a hotel lobby were he not a friend of Royce and there to launch the first Ocean House Music Festival, as a personal favour.
The Ocean House is big on movie nights and according to Chef John Kolesar, they often do buffets and classic film pairings – the mind boggles as to what Chitty Chitty Bang Bang might inspire on a plate apart from chilli chilli popcorn?
The beach – longer than Plettenberg Bay’s famous Robberg – signals at you like the lighthouse flanking it, only I have never seen fishermen dragging their lines from behind fancy SUVs.
Providence: If you are a culture vulture, who prefers the bright lights, then you shouldn’t miss out on this town, which is the home of Brown University and much easier to navigate on foot or by car, than Boston, home of Harvard. We were lucky enough to be there during the height of autumn and were advised to head straight for Prospect Terrace on the historic east side of town.
From here you can view the whole Providence skyline aflame in foliage to match any red carpet line-up of Branson’s bright hostesses. (We had arrived on American soil care of Virgin rather than The Mayflower – much better fed and showing no signs of scurvy.)
There are also two must-see museums for any artist or art lover: The Museum of Art at Rhode Island School of Design and the Culinary Arts Museum, guaranteed to make your stomach rumble.
We had lunch at Siena in Atwell Street with the British author of To Sir With Love, Tim Braithwaite, whose famous classic is about to hit the West End in London.
At the age of 102, minus glasses or a hearing aid, he is living proof that the pilgrim spirit still reigns supreme in New England. - Saturday Star
l Former South African tennis Number 1 Abe Segal was flown to the US courtesy of Virgin Atlantic Airways.