Residents of Newport County are invited to enjoy free admission to the four open Preservation Society properties on Saturday, October 28 and Sunday, October 29.
This offer includes residents of Jamestown, Newport, Middletown, Portsmouth, Tiverton and Little Compton. Free admission is also extended to personnel stationed at Naval Station Newport and their immediate family, and to students of Salve Regina University. Proof of residence or Naval Station or student ID is required. Learn more by visiting www.newportmansions.org/events/newport-county-days-2023.
The Breakers, The Elms and Marble House will be open both days from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Rosecliff will be open 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Houses and grounds close one hour after last tour admission. This offer does not include the Beneath The Breakers or The Elms Servant Life tours.
With HBO’s “The Gilded Age” returning for Season 2 starting October 29, guests can enjoy the unique experience of walking through historic spaces used as settings for a popular television drama. The Breakers Music Room, for instance, is presented as the Russell family’s ballroom while the kitchen at The Elms is the gathering place for the Russells’ staff. At Marble House, Consuelo Vanderbilt’s bedroom stands in for railroad tycoon George Russell’s bedroom in his Fifth Avenue mansion.
The free Newport Mansions app provides audio tours that tell the fascinating stories of the people who lived and worked in these grand mansions. Younger visitors can enjoy entertaining Family Tours at The Breakers and Marble House, where the mansions come to life with fun sound effects and fanciful creatures like the dolphin under the grand staircase and Apollo the Sun God bragging about his curly hair. Visitors should download the app in advance and bring their earphones or earbuds.
At Rosecliff – sparkling after an extensive $7.4 million restoration project that lasted almost eight months – be sure to visit the second floor, where the exhibition “The Celestial City: Newport and China” showcases treasures of Chinese art collected by Newport merchants and industrialists; photographs and stories from Newport’s early Chinese community; and the writings, portraits and family heirlooms of Chinese women suffragists who inspired American women’s rights leaders including Alva Vanderbilt Belmont of Marble House. Contemporary artworks by Yu-Wen Wu and Jennifer Ling Datchuk will illuminate Chinese contributions to Newport as well as hidden connections between the Newport mansions and the Chinese American experience.
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