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
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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.
Panelists from the Hudson River Museum, Lyndhurst Mansion, and the City of Troy will share what makes their properties special, along with the characteristics of their sites and landscapes at the turn of the 20th century. They will discuss how HBO’s “The Gilded Age” has impacted period houses and properties and driven an interest in their history. Our panelists will also share what filming for the series means for their sites, and how it has helped bring the past to life.
Laura Vookles is Chair of the Curatorial Department at the Hudson River Museum, where she has worked in various capacities since 1985. Vookles has completed numerous successful furnishing, conservation, and interpretation projects for Glenview, the museum’s 1877 Hudson River home on the National Register of Historic Places. She was a critical team member of a $2.1 million restoration project completed in 1999, which furnished the Parlor and reopened it as a period room for the first time, as well as uncovering and restoring a magnificent painted glass laylight over the grand staircase. She has curated and written for numerous Hudson River Museum publications, including “The Color of the Moon: Lunar Paintings in American Art” (Fordham University Press/Hudson River Museum, 2019); “The Panoramic River: The Hudson and The Thames” (Hudson River Museum, 2013); and “Dutch New York: the Roots of Hudson Valley Culture” (Fordham University Press/Hudson River Museum, 2009). She holds a Master’s in Art History from Boston University and a BA in Art History from the University of Virginia.
Emma Gencarelli is the Film, Photography & Collections Coordinator at Lyndhurst in Tarrytown, N.Y. She holds a BFA in Film and worked in post-production on television programs and films for several years. In her current position, she combines her film experience with her MA in Historic Preservation and Museum Studies from the University of Delaware, integrating curatorial, collections, and research work side by side with the management and logistics for Lyndhurst’s film and television productions.
Kathryn Sheehan is a native of Troy, N.Y., and has been historian for Rensselaer County and Troy since 2006. Sheehan has worked at the Hart Cluett Museum since 1986, arriving as an intern from the Public History Department at the University at Albany (SUNY). She has lectured on topics including Uncle Sam, the Underground Railroad, Woman Suffrage and most recently “The Gilded Age” in Troy, N.Y. She has appeared on numerous local and national television programs, including The History Channel, PBS, and C-Span. Sheehan is currently finishing her research for a book to be published in 2023, titled, “Architecture Worth Saving in Rensselaer County, 50 Years Later.”
Event thumbnail photo credit: Glenview Historic Home, used for filming HBO’s The Gilded Age. Photo Credit: Steve Paneccasio, Hudson River Museum.
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
