During the Gilded Age, America’s wealthiest families flocked to Newport, turning the area into their summertime playground. The popular HBO series, The Gilded Age, has peaked the public’s curiosity about this era of high society.

From the creators of Downton Abbey, The Gilded Age follows the story of “old” and “new money” in New York's and Newport’s high society, set in 1882. This Julian Fellowes masterpiece was filmed at and features many Newport Mansion properties: The Breakers, Marble House, The Elms, Rosecliff, Chateau-sur-Mer, and Hunter House.

Today, visitors can experience how America's elites and their staff lived with behind-the-scenes mansion tours, historical lectures, and access to the breathtaking grounds and cliffside vantage points, all without those pesky corsets. 

Gilded Age Experiences

These upcoming events allow visitors a chance to step back in time and experience the grandeur of the Gilded Age.

The Blue Garden

Back to Top of List
Where:
The address, directions, and information about parking will be emailed to you when tickets are purchased
When:
Every Thursday from June 15 to October 9, Tours at 11:00 AM, 12:30 PM, and 2:00 PM
Reservations:
Reservations will be available online beginning May 1, 2025.

Nothing says Gilded Age like beautiful, vast, and private gardens. The Blue Garden is open to the public once a week - every Thursday from June 15 - October 9. The Olmsted Brothers firm originally designed the property in 1908, after many years of neglect it fell into disrepair and was later restored in 2014 to its original glory.

The garden incorporates a palette of blues and purples and has something in bloom each month the garden is open. The Blue Garden is known today as a classic example of American landscape art and a triumph of historic preservation. There are three tours a day, exclusively on Thursdays, and costs $20 per person.

Reservations will be available online beginning May 1, 2025. 

More Details

 

 

Inside ''The Gilded Age''

Back to Top of List
Where:
Newport Mansions: Marble House, The Breakers, Chateau-sur-Mer, and The Elms
When:
Tour offered Fridays only, May 2, 9, 16, 23, 30 & June 6, 13, 20 and 27, 1:00 - 5:00 PM
Cost:
Adult: $250, Preservation Society members: $200

Fans of HBO's "The Gilded Age" will love this guided tour of locations in the Newport Mansions where the show was filmed. 

Interested now? Find an episode deep-dive breakdown here.

More Details

The Breakers

Picnic at a Gilded Age Mansion

Back to Top of List

Available at any open property during tour hours.

The Newport Mansions invite their guests to bring a picnic to enjoy on the grounds as part of their Newport Mansions experience. Bring your own picnic basket, cooler, blankets, and lawn chairs, and choose the perfect spot to savor the million-dollar view! Available to Preservation Society members and Newport Mansions tour ticket holders.

More Details

you may also like

   

Book Smart: Enjoy the library visited by Gilded Age Greats

Back to Top of List
Where:
The Redwood Library and Athenaeum
When:
Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday from 11:00 AM – 4:00 PM
Cost:
Free

Enjoy reading in a library visited by Gilded Age greats.

Literary legends like Edith Wharton, Henry James, and poet Julia Ward, who also co-founded the American Woman Suffrage Association, visited the library. Today the library is free to the public and offers lectures, exhibitions, fine arts displays, and other educational activities.

ICYMI: The Redwood Library and Athenaeum celebrated its 275th birthday in 2022.

More Details

Redwood Library

 

Gilded Age Getaways

Back to Top of List

Escape to the Gilded Age and walk in the steps of the ladies of Bellevue Avenue and beyond. 

Newport Jaguar Tours

Back to Top of List
The HBO® Gilded Age Locations Tour

The secret is out. Set in the 1880s, the HBO® smash hit The Gilded Age® (both seasons 1 and 2) was filmed largely in Newport. Let Newport Jaguar Tours, with a private guided tour in a classic Jaguar motorcar, show you where key scenes were filmed, including difficult-to-find series’ locations. With insider knowledge, once you get the lay of our own Hollywood land, we can even help you with guidance to secure interior location tours. This is a half or full-day tour, personally designed for you. 

 
The Scandalous Newport Tour

Get the Gilded Age scoop while being driven around in a Jaguar. Your guide and driver will share some of the more scandalous stories surrounding Newport families during this era. The Newport Jaguar Tours’ fleet of classic British motorcars offers guided private tours. The local Newport guides have extensive knowledge about the area and era.

 

Newport Jaguar Tours

More Details

 

Croquet anyone? Tennis?

Back to Top of List

Reopening after museum renovations on May 15, 2025. 

Don’t miss a chance to experience a sport most people have only read about or seen on television. Visit The International Tennis Hall of Fame for some friendly competition. Step back in time on the grass grounds where croquet enthusiasts have been playing since the late 19th century.

A croquet pro will oversee this classic lawn game played on the property’s historic grass courts. Also, take the opportunity to play tennis on three grass courts open to the public.

More Details

 

Gilded Age Boating

Back to Top of List
Where:
Classic Cruises of Newport
When:
Available Seasonally

Earn your sea legs aboard the 1929 classic motor yacht, Elco (Rum Runner II), with Classic Cruises of Newport. Rum Runner II was built in 1929 during the height of Prohibition, for the purpose of smuggling cases of rum and other contraband alcohol along the East Coast. 

Today, she is fully restored and offers the luxury of a classic motor yacht and the thrill of a high-speed bandit—with a history all her own.

Rum Runner Sunset Cruise

 
More Details

 

Gilded Age at The Vanderbilt

Back to Top of List

GILDED AGE PUNCH BOWL

Step into the parlor or the library at the sophisticated Vanderbilt Hotel and order one of The Vanderbilt's specialty cocktails. Choose from a signature punch bowl or a seasonal bubbly large-format aperitif, which pays homage to cocktails from the Gilded Age infused with The Vanderbilt's playful spirit.

More Details

 

DISCOVER THE RESERVE ROOM

A true one-of-a-kind experience here in Newport.

Enter The Reserve Room at The Vanderbilt, which has been transformed into an interactive whisky haven. Think: A game of billiards, exclusive cocktails and pours of The Macallan, and a touch of modern Gilded Age glamour for an authentic experience. 

More Details

Vanderbilt Reimagined

 

Walk, Talk, and Learn

Back to Top of List

The Newport Historical Society offers a variety of tours including one about Newport’s Gilded Age summer colony and how the city transformed socially and economically during that period. Learn how Newport supported and encouraged religious freedom. 

Find out about the early history of Newport’s people of color, enslaved and free. You can pack in a lot of history in these tours that range from 60 to 90 minutes. Step outside and learn about Newport’s rich and storied history.

More Details

 

upcoming gilded age events

'Museum Reads' Book Club: "Gilded" at Newport Art Museum

Newport Art Museum Aug 21, 2025

Welcome to Museum Reads, the Newport Art Museum’s Art-Themed book group for adults! Are you looking… Read More

“The Gilded Age” on HBO

From the creators of Downton Abbey, HBO's The Gilded Age premiered season 1 in January 2022, and follows the story of "old" and "new money" in New York's high society, set in 1882. This Julian Fellowes masterpiece was filmed at and features many Newport Mansion properties;  The BreakersMarble HouseThe ElmsRosecliffChateau-sur-Mer and Hunter House. Stream the first season of The Gilded Age now on HBO Max. Season 2 is currently in post-production and was also partially filmed in Newport—the release date is to be announced.

 

 

Explore the Newport Mansions

From a 70-room Italian-renaissance style palazzo to the first home run on electricity without a backup, the Newport Mansions are like nothing you’ve ever seen – we promise.

The Breakers

Back to Top of List
Location:
44 Ochre Point Avenue
Hours:
Open Daily, 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM
Cost:
Adult: $32, Youth (6-12): $14, Member: Free

The Breakers is the grandest of Newport's summer "cottages" and a symbol of the Vanderbilt family's social and financial preeminence in turn of the century America.

Today, visitors can experience both mansion and grounds tours, special events, and The Breakers Café, a small cafe at the Welcome Center located on-site. 

Please note: Timed Ticketing at The Breakers Started February 24th, for more information, click here

 

 

Location:
367 Bellevue Ave
Hours:
Open Daily, 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM
Cost:
Adult: $25, Youth (6-12): $10, Member: Free

Welcome to the summer retreat of Philadelphia coal magnate Mr. and Mrs. Edward Julius Berwind who made his fortune in the coal industry. The Elms, a 48-room mansion on historic Bellevue Avenue, was modeled after the mid-18th-century French chateau d'Asnieres (c.1750) outside Paris. 

The Elms offers both a mansion tour, with access to the grounds, and a servant life tour for visitors. 

 

 

Marble House

Back to Top of List
Location:
596 Bellevue Avenue
Hours:
Open Daily, 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM
Cost:
Adult: $25, Youth (6-12): $10, Member: Free

Marble House was a social and architectural landmark that set the pace for Newport's subsequent transformation from a quiet summer colony of wooden houses to the legendary resort of opulent stone palaces at the time it was built between 1888 and 1892.

Visitors can experience tours, special events, and afternoon tea in the Chinese Tea House at Marble House.

 

 

Location:
548 Bellevue Ave
Hours:
Open Daily, May 30 - November 2
Cost:
Adult: $25, Youth (6-12): $10, Member: Free

Commissioned by Nevada silver heiress Theresa Fair Oelrichs in 1899, architect Stanford White modeled Rosecliff after the Grand Trianon, the garden retreat of French kings at Versailles. Scenes from several films have been shot on location at Rosecliff, including The Great GatsbyTrue Lies, Amistad, and 27 Dresses. 

Today, visitors can experience tours, special exhibits, private events, and the iconic Newport Flower Show at this wondrous mansion. 

 

 

Chateau-sur-Mer

Back to Top of List
Location:
548 Bellevue Ave
Hours:
Open Daily, May 30 - November 2
Cost:
Adult: $25, Youth (6-12): $10, Member: Free

Chateau-sur-Mer is considered one of the first great mansions in Newport. It was the most palatial residence in Newport from its completion in 1852 until the appearance of the Vanderbilt houses in the 1890s, and was originally built as an Italianate-style villa for China trade merchant William Shepard Wetmore. When Mr. Wetmore died in 1862, his son left architect Richard Morris Hunt to remodel and redecorate the estate in the Second Empire French style. Chateau-sur-Mer's grand scale and lavish parties are said to have ushered in the Gilded Age of Newport. 

The house was purchased by the Preservation Society in 1969 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 2006. 

 

 

more mansions

View All

 

Virtual Mansion Tours

We're grateful the Newport Mansions expanded their exhibits and experiences into the digital space with virtual tours of these following properties.

more to explore

GET SOCIAL

Tag your photos #TheClassicCoast for the chance to be featured on our accounts.