Visitor Info
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Tours, Groups, Exclusive Experiences
Explore our various tour types to find what’s best for you and your group.
Explore the Gilded Age
The Gilded Age was a period of unprecedented change in America. Fortunes were spent on luxuries such as the lavish "summer cottages" of Newport.
Episode Deep Dive
Learn about the people, places and events depicted in Julian Fellowes' popular historical drama series.
Current Members
Current members can see a full list of benefits and any information regarding Members Events.
Become a Member
We invite you to become a member of the Preservation Society today. In addition to joining an active community of preservation supporters and advocates, members are offered unlimited access to all open houses.
About Us
Our mission is to protect, preserve, and present the best of Newport County's architectural heritage. Learn more about us and our work.
Museum Rentals & Weddings
Host your wedding, rehearsal dinner, corporate event, or other celebration at our historic museums.
The “Golden Age of Cocktails” blossomed in the decades after the Civil War, when rapid industrialization led to the accumulation of staggering wealth for the very few and great prosperity for a burgeoning middle class. From the 1870s through the 1910s, discriminating palates delighted in new inventions dubbed cocktails. In New York, New Orleans, Chicago, San Francisco and Newport, found that a whiskey or gin drink cooled with ice and blended with fruit or other flavorings enhanced dinner parties and sporting events, luncheons, balls, ocean crossings and cross-country sojourns by rail. The Gilded Age beckons us to visit its cocktail culture, when bartenders became the Edisons of libations and the forefathers of classic cocktails of today: the Martini, Manhattan, Old-Fashioned and many more. A signature cocktail from Tichi’s book will be served at the reception after the lecture and the author will be available for a book signing.
Cecelia Tichi is an award-winning teacher and the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of English Emerita at Vanderbilt University. Her books span U.S. literature and culture from the 17th century through recent times, including a biography of Jack London and a book, “Civic Passions,” profiling seven activists in the tumultuous years of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era of the 1910s. Tichi’s books have been reviewed in The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Publishers’ Weekly and elsewhere. Her work has been supported by the Rockefeller and Mellon Foundations, and she has held the Chair in Modern Culture at the Library of Congress. She has lectured widely in the U.S. and internationally from Europe to East Asia. Tichi’s research and teaching inspired “What Would Mrs. Astor Do? The Essential Guide to the Manners and Mores of the Gilded Age,” followed by “Gilded Age Cocktails” and “Jazz Age Cocktails,” which set the stage for her mystery crime novels—the “Val and Roddy DeVere Gilded Age Series” that boasts “Gilded” in each title—the first, “A Gilded Death,” is set in Newport in the summer of 1898.
Explore the underground systems that made this great house a marvel of technology for its time.
See and hear how the other half lived. This tour will highlight the stories of some of the men and women who worked to service the social whirl of Newport during the Gilded Age.
Change can be exciting. It can also be unsettling. During the Gilded Age, change was happening at a pace unmatched in American history.
Fans of HBO’s "The Gilded Age" will love this guided tour of locations in the Newport Mansions where the show was filmed.
This award-winning and record-breaking exhibition uses beautiful works of art made from simple toys to explore animal endangerment, the balance of ecosystems, and mankind’s relationship with nature.
Newport County residents and employees of the hospitality industry are invited to visit 16 participating attractions in Newport and Bristol Counties as our guests!
Who were the everyday people in this period of industrialization and urbanization? What were their struggles and triumphs? Speaker: Nancy C. Unger
See you at the Newport Flower Show Opening Night Reception, the start of Newport’s Summer Season. The place to sip, shop and see old friends and new!
The Newport Flower Show will celebrate the early 19th-century custom of a trip abroad as a means of gaining both exposure and association with the sophistication of Europe.
Tuesdays in the Garden provides families a fun and creative way to connect with The Preservation Society’s Green Animals Topiary Garden through Sean Kenney’s Nature Connects sculptures.
Plan to join us for a fun and elegant evening of dinner and dancing at our annual black-tie fundraising event.
Plan now to put together a foursome and join us at our annual Golf Outing at Newport National Golf Course in Middletown, R.I., a challenging, 7,244-yard links-style course offering a dramatic setting with views of the Atlantic Ocean and Sakonnet Passage.
The 2023 festival will continue with the successful format of daily seminars held at Rosecliff that provide our guests with an intimate, educational wine, spirits or food experience.
It is never too early to start planning for your next holiday to remember! Mark your calendar to join us for the annual Holiday Dinner Dance at The Breakers.
Download our tour app before your visit and bring your earbuds.
Parking is free onsite at all properties except for Hunter House and The Breakers Stable & Carriage House, where street parking is available.
Answers to some of our most frequently asked questions.
Explore the 11 properties under the stewardship of the Preservation Society and open as historic house museums.
Partners in Preservation
