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.
Change can be exciting. It can also be unsettling. During the Gilded Age, change was happening at a pace unmatched in American history.
Americans went from horse-drawn to motor-driven, oil lamplight to electric light, farmwork to factory labor, handmade to assembly line-produced, all in a few tumultuous decades. Mass communications, easy long-distance travel, leisure time and recorded entertainment reached millions for the first time.
Besides familiar names like Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Edison and Hunt, how much do you know about this period that transformed America? Or rather, how much don’t you know? Find out by taking a deep dive with the Preservation Society’s series “The Gilded Age Years: Transforming America.”
In this six-part series at The Breakers – a place that epitomizes the Gilded Age – we will journey through an era that gave shape to the country we know today. Our distinguished guest speakers will illuminate the period between the Civil War and the dawn of the 20th century, examining the people, events and inventions that forever shaped our nation’s cultural fabric.
Are we living in a second Gilded Age? The transformative years of the late 19th and early 20th centuries left a lasting legacy for our world today. Speaker: Dr. Michael Patrick Cullinane
Technologies like the telegraph, phonograph, photography and even the sewing machine revolutionized communication, connecting and shrinking the world. Speaker: Matthew Bird
Visit the heyday of Northeastern vacation spots from the Adirondacks to Coney Island, from Martha’s Vineyard to the Catskills, and from Saratoga to Newport. Speaker: Will B. Mackintosh
The Gilded Age is notorious as a time of rampant political corruption. It was also a time when reformers ignited a reinvention of American democracy. Speaker: T.J. Stiles
The first tall commercial buildings and the grandest of mansions are icons of the Gilded Age, but they were not the only architectural changes taking place. Speaker: Richard Guy Wilson
Who were the everyday people in this period of industrialization and urbanization? What were their struggles and triumphs? Speaker: Nancy C. Unger
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
