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Residents of the City of Newport can enjoy free admission to our houses in Newport and to Green Animals Topiary Garden in Portsmouth whenever they are open for tours. Also includes Naval Station Newport personnel and Salve Regina University students (Naval Station or student ID required). Marble House is one of the earliest examples of Beaux-Arts architecture in the United States, with design inspiration from the Petit Trianon at the Palace of Versailles.
The Spice & Tea Exchange
Visitors may not record guides giving their presentations. At no time may visitors step beyond the roped boundaries of the tour route. Photo ops may be limited when there is high volume visitation. In all cases, visitors must follow the direction of house staff about photography. On our mobile app, audio tours of The Breakers, The Elms & Marble House are available in English, French, German, Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. Audio tours of Rosecliff and Chateau-sur-Mer are in English only.
Picnicking in the Gardens & Grounds
Swimwear and clothing with rude, vulgar or offensive language or graphics are not permitted. Admission may be denied if clothing is deemed inappropriate. The style — we’ll call it Newport Classic Assemblage — is on full display at the Gardiner when you walk from the art-filled lobby into a very cozy, very green bar on the right. Adding his great-grandfather’s art to the hotel steeps the Gardiner House firmly in Newport history.
'The Gilded Age' Features These Real-Life Mansions in New York and Rhode Island - AOL
'The Gilded Age' Features These Real-Life Mansions in New York and Rhode Island.
Posted: Fri, 27 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Open Daily10 am – 4 pm

She sold the house to Frederick H. Prince in 1932, less than a year before her death. Entrance into the mansion is through one of two French Baroque-style doors, each weighing a ton and a half. Both are embellished by the monogram "WV" set into an oval medallion. They were made at the John Williams Bronze Foundry in New York. Get your garden going or find nice springtime and Mother's Day gifts for friends and family! A variety of flowers, vegetables and specialty plants are available while supplies last.
The Grand Salon, designed by Allard and Sons, served as a ballroom and reception room. Designed in the Louis XIV style, it features green silk cut velvet upholstery and draperies. The walls are carved wood and gold gilt panels representing scenes from classical mythology, inspired by the panels and trophies adorning the Galerie d'Apollon at the Louvre. The ceiling features an 18th-century French painting in the manner of Pietro da Cortona depicting Minerva, with a surround adapted from the ceiling of the Queen's Bedroom at Versailles.
Open Properties and Events
The Vanderbilt Family Homes: Here's Your Guide - Architectural Digest
The Vanderbilt Family Homes: Here's Your Guide.
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In 1963, the Preservation Society was able to get the house from Prince’s estate. In 2006, the Marble House was designated as a National Historic Landmark in the United States. The mansion was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 10, 1971. The Department of the Interior designated it as a National Historic Landmark on February 17, 2006. The Salon was designed by Allard and Sons and was decorated with 22-karat gold wall panels, green silk cut velvet upholstery and draperies, and painted ceiling murals.
Tours
Perhaps most importantly, he spent summers bouncing around Newport parties while he was growing up, observing and learning from the masters of high society entertaining. It makes sense that Cushing, his wife, Lucia, and business partner Wirt Blaffer would add international flair to the Gardiner House. But the Mediterranean influence that will soon arrive at the Gardiner is new, and can be attributed to Lucia Cushing. Enjoy springtime afternoon tea at Stoneacre Brasserie. Featuring a small, and ever changing seasonal menu, their Tea Tower includes pastries, tea sandwiches & sweets.
Hotels with Pools

After his death, she reopened Marble House and added the Chinese Tea House on the seaside cliff, where she hosted rallies for women's suffrage. In 1963, the Marble house was purchased by the Preservation Society of Newport County, and Harold the youngest son of the Vanderbilts, gave money to restore the home to its original immaculate condition. Delighted with Hunt's design for his Fifth Avenue mansion in Manhattan, William Vanderbilt commissioned him to build this Newport residence as a birthday present for his wife, Alva, money being no obstacle to the most luxurious results. July 27 – August 18Rosecliff open Saturdays & Sundays 10 am – 3 pm for first-floor viewing only. Home to more than 80 topiary animals and other figures for more than a century, Green Animals also blazes with colorful flowers from May until October. Rosecliff was built for Nevada silver heiress Theresa Fair Oelrichs, who used it to host many fabulous Gilded Age entertainments.
Hunter House
The Marble house was a social landmark, as it is one of the earliest examples of Beaux-Arts architecture which transformed the wooden colony houses of Newport into the legendary resort of opulent stone palaces. Hunt had the inspiration for this house from the Petit Trianon at the Palace of Versailles. The cost of the mansion was reported in the contemporary press account as being $11 million; $7 million of which was spent on the marble. William Vanderbilt built Marble House as a 39th birthday present for his wife, Alva. It was a social and architectural landmark that set the pace for Newport's subsequent transformation from a quiet summer colony of wooden houses to the legendary resort of opulent Gilded Age mansions.
The Conservation staff is in the process of stabilizing the very degraded textile. The Gothic Room, in the Gothic Revival-style, was designed to display Alva Vanderbilt's collection of Medieval and Renaissance decorative objects. The stone fireplace in the room was copied by Allard and Sons from one in the Jacques Cœur House in Bourges. In 1875 she married William K. Vanderbilt, who would inherit much of his father’s fortune following the latter’s death. With this money, the opulent Marble House was constructed, a process finished in 1892. Three years later she divorced her husband, defying societal expectations and norms of the time.
Although it appears to be a two-story structure, it is actually spread over four levels. The kitchen and service areas are located on the basement level, reception rooms on the ground floor, bedrooms on the second floor, and servant quarters on the hidden, uppermost level. The load-bearing portion of the walls are brick, with the exterior faced in white Westchester marble. Here Hunt adapted French neoclassical architectural forms of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to enliven the Beaux-Arts detailing. During guided and group tours, stops for brief photo ops will be allowed as time permits. Guests using audio tour devices may use their own discretion in taking time for photographs unless they delay other guests.
The house was built as a summer cottage for Alva and William Vanderbilt. William chose to have the house built for his wife for her 39th birthday. In 1895, just a few years after the construction was complete, William and Alva were divorced. After the former couple got divorced, Alva sold the house to Frederick H. Prince in 1932.
The 42-year-old Cushing wanted to distill elements of his Newport summers and life at the Ledges into the Gardiner House. As a result, the hotel has the spirit of a Newport home, but doesn’t try to recreate the buttoned-down aesthetic of the Gilded Age. But the recently opened Gardiner House hotel can’t be squeezed into any tidy Newport lodging categories.
Downloadable Self-Guided Audio Tours are available for The Elms, Marble House, Rosecliff and Chateau-sur-Mer. Marble House also offers a downloadable Self-Guided Family Audio Tour. See the largest and most spectacular of the Newport Mansions and learn about the extraordinary Vanderbilt family who lived there, from the extravagant society dinners they hosted to the games their children played in the gilded halls. Check the Operating Schedule for mansion hours during your visit. The Newport Marble House is a very important landmark.
Alva Vanderbilt, along with Caroline Astor, were two of the preeminent hostesses during Newport's Gilded Age. I can't imagine too many places I'd rather attend a party in Newport than this Vanderbilt mansion. Unfortunately for Alva, she and William divorced in 1895.She wouldn't be able to throw any more parties at Marble House until she reopened it after William's death in 1920. Marble House, the summer home of William K. Vanderbilt, is definitely one of the top 3 Newport Rhode Island mansions to see, in my opinion. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971 and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2006.
This freely available resource empowers the public with authoritative knowledge that deepens their understanding and appreciation of the built environment. The Elms was modeled after an 18th-century French chateau but featured the latest technology of the Gilded Age. It houses an outstanding collection of paintings, statuary and tapestries, and its landscape features formal gardens, terraces, pavilions and fountains.
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