Newport Mansions

In the decades either side of 1900 the richest families in the country built summer houses along Bellevue Avenue, and the scale is the point: The Breakers, built for Cornelius Vanderbilt II in 1895, has seventy rooms in the Italian Renaissance style; Marble House cost a reported eleven million dollars in 1892 money, much of it in marble; Rosecliff was modelled on a Versailles garden pavilion. They were lived in only for a brief summer social season. Several are run as museums by the Preservation Society. The Cliff Walk runs behind them for about five and a half kilometres between the lawns and the sea, free and public, which is the other half of the visit.

What you'll find

• The Breakers - seventy rooms, Vanderbilt, finished 1895.
• Marble House and Rosecliff - the other set pieces on Bellevue.
• Houses used for a brief summer season - the fact that frames all of it.
• The Cliff Walk - about five and a half kilometres between lawns and sea.

When to go

May to October for full opening. A full day for two or three houses.

Practical notes

Each house is a separate ticket unless you buy a combination. Summer queues are long. Interiors are crowded and timed. Parts of the Cliff Walk close after storms.

Nearby

Newport harbour is west; Fort Adams is on the point.