Visitor Info
View our FAQs, map & parking, guidelines, and more.
Tours
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.
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 Breakers is the grandest of Newport's summer "cottages" and a symbol of the Vanderbilt family's social and financial pre-eminence in the Gilded Age.
A dragon in the dining room and a dolphin under the stairs – this tour will introduce children to this Gilded Age mansion from a unique and fun perspective.
Visit The Breakers from the comfort of your own home
Based on personal diaries, letters, records and oral histories, The Breakers audio tour offers first-person accounts of life in the house from members of the family, servants and their children.
Explore the underground systems that made this great house a marvel of technology for its time.
Special rates available for groups of 20 or more adults and 10 or more students.
Visitors must bring their own smart device with earbuds/headsets and download the free Newport Mansions tour app before your visit. Printed scripts are available at most mansions and staff appreciate your questions.
Download the App
The Breakers was built by America’s pre-eminent architect for one of the richest families in the world.
Original Builder
Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt II
Architect
Richard Morris Hunt
Construction dates
1893-1895
Materials
Brick faced with Indiana limestone
Ownership transferred to the Preservation Society
1972
Change can be exciting. It can also be unsettling. During the Gilded Age, change was happening at a pace unmatched in American history.
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
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.
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
