The Breakers
National Historic Landmark · Newport, Rhode Island
A seventy-room summer house built between 1893 and 1895 for Cornelius Vanderbilt II, designed by Richard Morris Hunt in the Renaissance Revival style with interiors by Jules Allard and Sons and Ogden Codman Jr. It runs to roughly 138,000 square feet gross across five floors, and it was occupied for perhaps ten weeks a year. Hunt was building Biltmore for another Vanderbilt at the same time, which makes these two houses the clearest statement of what the American Gilded Age was for.
44 Ochre Point Avenue, Newport, Rhode Island, 02840, United States
Open daily, generally 9 AM to 5 PM with LAST ADMISSION AT 4 PM, and reduced hours in winter — verify before travelling. Operated by the Preservation Society of Newport County, which runs most of the Newport mansions on a shared ticket. ⚠ THE CAR PARK IS SMALL FOR THE VISITOR NUMBERS and fills on summer mornings; the Cliff Walk runs directly behind the property and is free and open at all hours.