TED Founder Sells Newport Estate for $2.5 Million

NEWPORT, RI — TED Conference founder Richard Saul Wurman and his wife, Gloria Nagy, a best-selling author, have sold "The Orchard," a mansion completed in 1873 for Newport Mayor Col. George R. Fearing along the fabled Newport Cliff Walk, for $2.5 million.

The 16-bedroom, 13,762-square-foot Newport landmark sits at 180 Narragansett Ave. and was designed from drawings based on an 18th century country house in Geneva, Switzerland, by the Newport architectural firm George Champlin Mason & Son.

The city's assessed value for the property is $6.73 million.

Wurman and Nagy have owned "The Orchard," built of yellow Milwaukee brick and Ohio limestone, since 1993, and "under their stewardship, this magnificent estate's authentic details have been lovingly preserved while amenities were added to enhance its comfort," according to sales materials provided by the real estate firm that held the listing, Lila Delman Real Estate.

The house was originally listed at $6.7 million, according to data from the statewide Multiple Listing Service.

Along with a palatial interior that includes two apartments, office space, ocean views, two outdoors pools, an indoor pool, spa, greenhouse and multiple dining and entertaining areas, the property features 4.75 acres of landscaped, park-like grounds.

For Wurman, the home offered a place to rest and relax as well as conduct business with ample space for meetings and conferences. In a 2014 profile in the Providence Journal, it was described as "a live-in Apple Store equipped with 'smart' appliances and a Prius-ready garage."

As Newporters, Wurman and Nagy didn't fit in with Newport's social elite, and there were articles in the society pages of the New York Times that portrayed the couple as feeling a bit out of place among Newport's wealthy.

"I love living in this house, and I’m not blasé about it at all, but this town is an intellectual wasteland without any sense of humor," he told the Times in 2010. "I’ve been living here for 17 years, and if you asked me to tell you when I last had lunch with anybody but my wife or someone that came to see me from India or New York or Boston or Germany, I couldn’t come up with a name.”

Many Newporters were not fond of the comment and Newport being painted with a broad brush in a newspaper article with national reach. In a response here on the Patch, Daniel Highet said that maybe the power couple was lonely.

"Perhaps someone should invite them over to their home to drink a bottle of good red wine and to make pasta? On the other hand, the tone and substance of their remarks, which some might excuse as tossed off and snarky, when coming from a person of Wurman's status, are caustic and reputationally damning," Highet wrote. "This is especially true when you consider that cities today make it a point to manage and protect their good name and reputations, just like corporations or brands, to foster and attract new business to the area. Or at least the more successful ones do."

Newport Mayor Jeanne-Marie Napolitano invited the couple to dinner in the spirit of Abraham Lincoln who once said "I don't like that man. I must get to know him better."

"So that they might experience the Newport that they've yet to experience – a community of high-caliber people, deep cultural resources and stimulating intellectual and personal exchange," the mayor said.

The buyer of the mansion was not immediately disclosed.

Photos courtesy: Lila Delman Real Estate