Marble House
Historic House · Newport, Rhode Island
A summer house on Bellevue Avenue built between 1888 and 1892 for Alva and William Kissam Vanderbilt by Richard Morris Hunt, using five hundred thousand cubic feet of marble and modelled on the Petit Trianon at Versailles. It was a thirty-ninth birthday present to Alva and it changed Newport, because it turned the town's wooden summer cottages into a competition in masonry. What makes it the most interesting house on the avenue is what happened next: Alva divorced Vanderbilt, kept the house, and later ran meetings of the American suffrage campaign from the Chinese Tea House she built on its cliff.
596 Bellevue Avenue, Newport, Rhode Island, 02840, United States
Open daily in season, generally from mid-morning to late afternoon, with reduced days and hours in winter and a decorated Christmas season. ⚠ HOURS AND SEASONAL CLOSURES VARY BY PROPERTY across the Preservation Society of Newport County — confirm this house's opening dates on newportmansions.org before travelling. Admission is roughly $25-$35 for an adult single-house ticket including an audio tour, and combination tickets covering several houses are materially better value. Parking is free in the house lot on Bellevue Avenue and fills on summer afternoons.