For the past few years Newport Beach on Westside Road has been an interior-lit sign advertising Campgrounds and a Mobile Home Park, R.V. Hook Ups, a Store, an ATM Cash Machine, and Visa, MasterCard and Interact receptivity. Yesterday, while driving into Vernon, Lindsay and I wondered, What's this place really about? What's behind the sign, its store, its bushes?
On our return we asked Newport's manager if we could look around. She nodded yes, and off we went down gravel roads lined with mobile homes, all of which have been added to over the years, from uncovered decks to covered porches, some of which have been turned into enclosed rooms, with more rooms added to them, reshaping their original design from minimal industrial to Bavarian cottage to west coast deco.
The grounds surrounding these homes have all been thoughtfully landscaped, many of them with hearty shrubs, some from the previous century, while others have been tamed with rock and pebble fields, at the centre of which stand birdbaths, wishing wells, driftwood sculptures. There is no longer camping at Newport, just lease-hold homes and monthly hook-ups. The boat launch, pictured above, is deserted.
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