Visitor Info
View our FAQs, map & parking, guidelines, and more.
Tours, Groups, Exclusive Experiences
Explore our various tour types to find what’s best for you and your group.
History of Newport and the Mansions
Founded in 1639, Newport was an important port city, a center of the slave trade, a fashionable resort and the summer home of the Gilded Age rich.
What was 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.
Deep Dive into the Show
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.
Wind Farm Federal Appeal: FAQs
The Preservation Society of Newport County is appealing federal agency approval of two massive wind farms off the Rhode Island coast.
Personal Photography on the Grounds
Rent our museums for commercial photography & videography, TV production, and wedding photography.
Commercial Filming or Photography
Museum Rentals & Weddings
Host your wedding, rehearsal dinner, corporate event, or other celebration at our historic museums.
Many know the names of Carrie Chapman Catt, co-founder of the League of Women Voters, and Alva Vanderbilt Belmont, who held two suffrage conferences at her Marble House. Both were crucial to the suffrage movement that culminated with American women winning the right to vote in 1920. But what were these two women’s interest in the Chinese Revolution of 1911 and how did it affect women suffragists in the US? Learn more about the women’s suffrage movement, as well as Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, a 16-year-old woman who played an important role in cross-cultural exchange and the crusade for women’s rights early in her life.
Dr. Cathleen D. Cahill
Dr. Cathleen D. Cahill is the Walter L. Ferree and Helen P. Ferree Professor in Middle-American History at the Pennsylvania State University. She is the author of two books and multiple articles. Her most recent book, Recasting the Vote: How Women of Color Transformed the Suffrage Movement (2020), received honorable mention for the Armitage-Jameson Book Prize in Western Women's History and honorable mention for the Society for the Study of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era's President's Book Prize. She is currently working on a graphic history of Mabel Lee’s life and activism. Dr. Cahill has spoken at many venues including for the National Park Service, at the Library of Congress and the National Portrait Gallery. Her work has also been excerpted in Time, Ms. Magazine and The New York Times. She is an Organization of American Historians Distinguished Lecturer and the steering committee chair for the Coalition for Western Women's History. Photograph by Michael T. Davis
Reverend Bayer Lee
Since 2004, Reverend Bayer Lee (no relation to Mabel Lee) has been the pastor of the First Chinese Baptist Church in Chinatown, New York, the same church that Mabel Lee established in memory of her father at 21 Pell Street. He is also a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Columbia University Teachers College, where he received his Ed.D. in 2013. His research there was funded by a Fulbright Grant in 1993, and his interests include spatial memories and housing studies, Hakka and Taishan ethnographies, and the formation of New York City's Chinatown. A scholar of many interests, Reverend Lee has devoted considerable time to researching Mabel Lee and has spoken about her at several community and research forums.
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.
Explore China’s deep influence on Newport from the 18th century through the Gilded Age. This exhibition brings together more than 100 extraordinary objects and illuminates how many different people of Chinese heritage, including artists, merchants, immigrant entrepreneurs and women suffragists, shaped all aspects of life in Newport.
This outdoor spectacle of holiday lights will dazzle and delight you! The 13-acre landscape of The Breakers turns into a wonderland of color and light. Includes tour of the lavish decorated rooms inside the house. Open on select evenings through the season. Includes The Breakers interior tour during the same visit.
A great Newport tradition! See The Breakers, Marble House and The Elms dressed in their festive holiday finery. It’s the most spectacular time of the year at these awe-inspiring Gilded Age mansions.
Our annual black-tie holiday event is sold out. The waitlist is at capacity and has been closed. Happy Holidays to all!
SOLD OUT
Preservation Society members, this evening is for you! Enjoy music, food, drinks and conversation amid the holiday décor in The Elms.
After a one-year sojourn to Marble House, New England’s premier flower show returns to Rosecliff with the theme of “At Home.”
Save the dates for the 19th annual festival, featuring the Vintner Dinner, Sunday Brunch and tasty yet educational seminar experiences.
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
