13 Best Sights in Newport County and East Bay, Rhode Island

Built in 1852 for William Shepard Wetmore, a merchant in the China Trade, the palatial Chateau-sur-Mer, a stunning example of High Victorian architecture, was Newport's first grand residence. In 1857, Wetmore threw an extravagant, unprecedented "country picnic" for more than 2,000 people, ushering in the Gilded Age in Newport. The house is a treasure trove of Victorian architecture, furniture, wallpapers, ceramics, and stenciling; see hand-carved Italian woodwork, Chinese porcelains, and Japanese and Egyptian Revival wallpapers. The grounds contain rare trees from as far away as Mongolia. Chateau-sur-Mer, along with several other Newport mansions, is among the stars of HBO's series, The Gilded Age.

One of the most opulent of the Newport mansions, Marble House contains 500,000 cubic feet of marble (valued at $7 million when the house was built from 1888 to 1892). William K. Vanderbilt, grandson of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, gave Marble House to his wife, Alva, as a gift for her 39th birthday. The house was designed by architect Richard Morris Hunt, who took inspiration from the Petit Trianon at Versailles. The Vanderbilts divorced three years later, in 1895. Alva married Oliver H. P. Belmont and moved down the street to Belcourt. After Belmont's death, she reopened Marble House and had the Chinese Tea House built on the back lawn, where she hosted "Votes for Women" rallies.

Tobacco heiress, philanthropist, and preservationist Doris Duke furnished her 39,000-square-foot English manorial–style house at the southern end of Bellevue Avenue with family treasures, fine art and antiques purchased on her world travels. Highlights include paintings by Renoir, Van Dyck, and Gainsborough, numerous Chinese porcelains, Turkish carpets and Belgian tapestries, and a suite of Louis XVI chairs. Duke's two camels, Baby and Princess (who came with an airplane she had purchased from a Middle Eastern businessman), once summered here on the expansive grounds designed by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. Duke bequeathed the oceanfront house with all of its contents to the Newport Restoration Foundation to operate as a museum after her death. Each year, the foundation assembles an exhibit devoted to Duke's lifestyle and interests, which is included with a guided tour. 

The 70-room summer estate of Cornelius Vanderbilt II, chairman and president of the New York Central Railroad, was built in 1895. Architect Richard Morris Hunt modeled the four-story residence after 16th-century Italian Renaissance palaces. This mansion is not only big, but grand—be sure to look for the sculpted figures tucked above the pillars. The interior includes rare marble, alabaster, and gilded rooms with open-air terraces that reveal magnificent ocean views. Noteworthy are a blue marble fireplace and walls in the billiard room, rose alabaster pillars in the dining room, and a porch with a mosaic ceiling that took six months for Italian artisans, lying on their backs, to install. The Beneath the Breakers tour offers a look at the technology underlying the home that was state-of-the-art in the late 19th century, including the electrical and plumbing systems used to keep the massive household running.

Architect Horace Trumbauer modeled this imposing 48-room French neoclassical home and its grounds after the Château d'Asnières near Paris. The Elms was built in 1901 for Edward Julius Berwind, a coal baron from Philadelphia and New York. It was one of the first Newport mansions to be fully electrified. At the foot of the 10-acre estate is a spectacular sunken garden, marble pavilions, and fountains. The Servant Life tour, which offers a glimpse into the lives of the Elms' staff members and the operation of facilities like the boiler room and kitchen, is one of the best of the mansion tours.

Richard Morris Hunt based his design for this 60-room mansion, built in 1894 for wealthy bachelor Oliver H. P. Belmont, on the hunting lodge of Louis XIII. Billionaire founder of Alex and Ani, Carolyn Rafaelian, a native Rhode Islander, purchased Belcourt in 2012 and has been working to restore the home to its former glory in an eco-conscious way, employing solar panels and thermal-heating-and-cooling systems. Jennifer Lawrence famously chose the estate as her 2019 wedding venue. On a restoration tour, which takes about 50 minutes followed by a 15-minute Q&A session, you can admire the stained glass, carved wood, and chandeliers—one of which has 20,000 pieces and another that weighs 460 pounds and was originally held up by a single nail.

Though only slightly less grand than some of the other Newport mansions, this Italianate-style villa with a mansard roof houses a remarkable collection of art and furniture gathered by the Morris family of New York City. Its significant 19th-century American paintings include Hudson River School landscapes. Built in 1860, the home was designed by George Champlin Mason, a Newport architect, for Edmund Schermerhorn, a descendent of one of the first settlers of New Netherland, the 17th-century Dutch colony centered on New York (New Amsterdam) and first cousin of Mrs. William Astor.

The oldest house owned and maintained by the Preservation Society of Newport County, constructed between 1748 and 1754, Hunter House served as the Revolutionary War headquarters of French admiral Charles Louis d'Arsac de Ternay after the home's Loyalist owner fled the city. Featuring a balustraded gambrel roof and heavy stud construction, it is an excellent example of early Georgian Colonial architecture. The carved pineapple over the doorway was a symbol of welcome throughout Colonial America. A collection of Colonial furniture includes pieces crafted by Newport's famed 18th-century Townsend-Goddard family of cabinetmakers and paintings by Cosmo Alexander, Gilbert Stuart, and Samuel King. The house is named for William Hunter, a U.S. Senator and President Andrew Jackson's chargé d'affaires to Brazil.

Revolutionary in design when it was completed in 1883, the shingle-style Isaac Bell House combines Old English and European architecture with Colonial American and exotic details, such as a sweeping open floor plan and bamboo-style porch columns. McKim, Mead & White of New York City designed the home for Isaac Bell, a wealthy cotton broker.

Among Newport's first summer cottages, this 1841 Gothic Revival mansion designed by Richard Upjohn was built for George Noble Jones, a Georgia plantation owner. The house is named for its second owners, the King family, one of whose members hired McKim, Mead & White to expand and redesign it. The dining room, one of the 1881 additions, contains a cork ceiling and one of the first installations of Tiffany glass windows. Furnishings reflect the King family's involvement in the China trade.

This museum exhibits original work by Norman Rockwell, J. C. Leyendecker, Maxfield Parrish, N. C. Wyeth, and more than 150 others spanning the "Golden Age of American Illustration" (1895–1945). All 323 of Rockwell's printed Saturday Evening Post covers are on display. Vernon Court, the 1898 beaux-arts--style building is an adaptation of an 18th-century French château and was designed by the same architects responsible for the New York Public Library and other landmarks; Frederick Law Olmsted designed the grounds.

Newport's most romantic mansion was commissioned by Tessie Fair Oelrichs, who inherited a Nevada silver fortune from her father. Stanford White modeled the 1902 palace after the Grand Trianon at Versailles. Rosecliff has a heart-shape staircase and Newport's largest private ballroom. The mansion stayed in the Oelrichs family until 1941, went through several ownership changes, and then was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. J. Edgar Monroe of New Orleans in 1947. The Monroes were known for throwing big parties. Scenes from the films The Great Gatsby (1974), True Lies (1994), and Amistad (1997) were shot here. The property underwent renovations in 2023.

As Newport's oldest surviving house, built circa 1697, this residence provides a glimpse of the city's Colonial and Revolutionary history. The dark-red building was damaged during the city's Stamp Act riots of 1765. After the British Parliament levied a tax on most printed material, the Sons of Liberty stormed the house, which was then occupied by a prominent Loyalist.