The Breakers | |
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![]() Interactive map showing The Breakers' location | |
Location | 44 Ochre Point Avenue, Newport, Rhode Island |
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Coordinates | 41°28′11″N71°17′55″W / 41.46972°N 71.29861°W |
Built | 1895 |
Architect | Richard Morris Hunt |
Architectural style | Neo Italian Renaissance |
Part of | Bellevue Avenue Historic District (ID72000023) |
NRHP reference No. | 71000019 |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | September 10, 1971 [1] |
Designated NHL | October 12, 1994 [2] |
Designated NHLDCP | December 8, 1972 |
The Breakers is a Gilded Age mansion located at 44 Ochre Point Avenue, Newport, Rhode Island, US. It was built between 1893 and 1895 as a summer residence for Cornelius Vanderbilt II, a member of the wealthy Vanderbilt family.
The 70-room mansion, with a gross area of 138,300 square feet (12,850 m2) and 62,482 square feet (5,804.8 m2) of living area on five floors, was designed by Richard Morris Hunt in the Renaissance Revival style; the interior decor was by Jules Allard and Sons and Ogden Codman Jr.
The Ochre Point Avenue entrance is marked by baroque forged wrought iron gates, and the 30-foot-high (9.1 m) walkway gates are part of a 12-foot-high (3.7 m) limestone-and-iron fence that borders the property on all but the ocean side. The footprint of the house covers approximately 1 acre (4,000 m2) or 43,000 square feet of the 14 acres (5.7 ha) estate on the cliffs overlooking Easton Bay of the Atlantic Ocean. [3]
The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1994. It is also a contributing property to the Bellevue Avenue Historic District. The property is owned and operated by the Newport Preservation Society as a museum and is open for visits all year.
Cornelius Vanderbilt II purchased the grounds in 1885 for $450,000 (equivalent to $15.3 million in 2023). [4] The previous mansion on the property was owned by Pierre Lorillard IV; it burned on November 25, 1892, and Vanderbilt commissioned famed architect Richard Morris Hunt to rebuild it in splendor. Vanderbilt insisted that the building be made as fireproof as possible, resulting in a structure composed of masonry and steel trusses, with no wooden parts. He even required that the boiler be located away from the house in an underground space below the front lawn. [5]
The designers created an interior using marble imported from Italy and Africa, and rare woods and mosaics from countries around the world. It also included architectural elements purchased from chateaux in France, such as the library mantel. Expansion was finally finished in 1892. [6]
The Breakers is the architectural and social archetype of the "Gilded Age", a period when members of the Vanderbilt family were among the major industrialists of America. [7] It was the largest, most opulent house in the Newport area upon its completion in 1895.
Vanderbilt died from a cerebral hemorrhage caused by a stroke in 1899 at age 55, leaving The Breakers to his wife Alice Gwynne Vanderbilt. She outlived him by 35 years and died at the age of 89 in 1934. She left The Breakers to her youngest daughter Countess Gladys Széchenyi (1886–1965), essentially because Gladys lacked American property; in addition, none of her other children were interested in the property, while Gladys had always loved the estate.[ citation needed ]
In 1948, Gladys leased the high-maintenance property to The Preservation Society of Newport County for $1 per year. The Preservation Society bought The Breakers and approximately 90% of its furnishings in 1972 for $365,000 (equivalent to $2.66 million in 2023) [4] from Countess Sylvia Szapary, Gladys's daughter, although the agreement granted her life tenancy. Upon her death in 1998, The Preservation Society agreed to allow the family to continue to live on the third floor, which is not open to the public. [8] This occupancy ended in 2018. [9]
As of 2017 [update] , it was the most-visited attraction in Rhode Island, with approximately 450,000 visitors annually. [10]
The pea-gravel driveway is lined with maturing pin oaks and red maples. The trees of The Breakers' grounds act as screens that increase the sense of distance between The Breakers and its Newport neighbors. Among the more unusual imported trees are two examples of the Blue Atlas Cedar, a native of North Africa. Clipped hedges of Japanese yew and Pfitzer juniper line the tree-shaded footpaths that meander about the grounds. Informal plantings of arbor vitae, taxus, Chinese juniper, and dwarf hemlock provide attractive foregrounds for the walls that enclose the formally landscaped terrace.
The grounds also contain several varieties of other rare trees, copper and weeping beeches. Today’s pattern for the south parterre garden was determined from old photographs and laid out in pink and white alyssum and blue ageratum. The wide borders paralleling the wrought iron fence are planted with rhododendrons, mountain laurel, dogwoods, and many other flowering shrubs that effectively screen the grounds from street traffic and give visitors a feeling of seclusion.
The third floor contains eight bedrooms and a sitting room decorated in Louis XVI style walnut paneling by Ogden Codman. The north wing of the third-floor quarters were reserved for domestic servants. Using ceilings nearly 18-foot-high (5.5 m), Richard Morris Hunt created two separate third floors to allow a mass aggregation of servant bed chambers. This was because of the configuration of the house, built in Italian Renaissance style, which included a pitched roof. Flat-roofed French classical houses built in the area at the time allowed a concealed wing for staff, whereas the Breakers' design did not permit this feature.
A total of 30 bedrooms are located in the two third-floor staff quarters. Three additional bedrooms for the butler, chef, and visiting valet are located on the mezzanine "entresol" floor, located between the first and second floor just to the rear of the main kitchen.
The attic floor contained more staff quarters, general storage areas, and the innovative cisterns. One smaller cistern supplied hydraulic pressure for the 1895 Otis elevator, still functioning in the house even though the house was wired for electricity in 1933. Two larger cisterns supplied fresh and salt water to the many bathrooms in the house.
Over the grand staircase is a stained glass skylight designed by artist John La Farge. Originally installed in the Vanderbilts' 1 West 57th Street (New York City) townhouse dining room, the skylight was removed in 1894 during an expansion of that house.
The Breakers was designed by Richard Morris Hunt, one of the country's most influential architects. It is regarded as a definitive expression of American Beaux-Arts architecture. Hunt's final project, it is also one of his few surviving works, and is valued for its architectural excellence. The home made Hunt the "dean of American architecture", as he was called by his contemporaries, [15] and helped define the Gilded Era in American history.[ citation needed ]
The house makes an appearance at the end of the establishing shot of the 1990 American drama Reversal of Fortune, where it stands in as the Newport mansion of Sunny and Claus von Bulow, which was instead the nearby Clarendon Court.
The Music room was used in the HBO series The Gilded age (2022–present), the room was featured on the season 1 finale as the Russels' ballroom when they threw coming out ball for their daughter Gladys.
Between July of 2024 and July of 2025, The Great Elephant Migration [16] will display a herd of 100 elephants [17] – sculpted from the vines of Lantana Camara – across the United States. Various sites around Newport, Rhode Island – including The Breakers, Salve Regina, and other spaces along the Cliff Walk – will host the collection before it is moved to New York, Miami, Montana, and Los Angeles. Lantana Camara is an invasive weed in India, and threatens elephants and other herd populations by restricting their access to more viable vegetation necessary for survival. By harvesting and making use of these weeds for the elephant sculptures, more than 200 indigenous artists are able to both promote and live a path of coexistence and conservation, and the funds raised by the sale of these elephants goes to help further that initiative.
From the late 1870s to the 1920s, the Vanderbilt family employed some of the best Beaux-Arts architects and decorators in the United States to build a notable string of townhouses in New York City and palaces on the East Coast of the United States. Many of the Vanderbilt houses are now National Historic Landmarks. Some photographs of Vanderbilt residences in New York are included in the Photographic series of American Architecture by Albert Levy (1870s).
Belcourt is a former summer cottage designed by architect Richard Morris Hunt for Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont and located on Bellevue Avenue in Newport, Rhode Island. Construction was begun in 1891 and completed in 1894, and it was intended to be used for only six to eight weeks of the year. Belcourt was designed in a multitude of European styles and periods; it features a heavy emphasis on French Renaissance and Gothic decor, with further borrowings from German, English, and Italian design. In the Gilded Age, the castle was noted for its extensive stables and carriage areas, which were incorporated into the main structure.
Biltmore Estate is a historic house museum and tourist attraction in Asheville, North Carolina. Biltmore House, the main residence, is a Châteauesque-style mansion built for George Washington Vanderbilt II between 1889 and 1895 and is the largest privately owned house in the United States, at 178,926 sq ft (16,622.8 m2) of floor space and 135,280 sq ft (12,568 m2) of living area. Still owned by George Vanderbilt's descendants, it remains one of the most prominent examples of Gilded Age mansions.
Rosecliff is a Gilded Age mansion of Newport, Rhode Island, now open to the public as a historic house museum. The house has also been known as the Hermann Oelrichs House or the J. Edgar Monroe House.
The Breakers was a Queen Anne style cottage designed by Peabody and Stearns for Pierre Lorillard IV and located along the Cliff Walk on Ochre Point Avenue, Newport, Rhode Island. In 1883, it was referred to as "unquestionably the most magnificent estate in Newport."
The Elms is a large mansion located at 367 Bellevue Avenue, Newport, Rhode Island, completed in 1901. The architect Horace Trumbauer (1868–1938) designed it for the coal baron Edward Julius Berwind (1848–1936), taking inspiration from the 18th century Château d'Asnières in Asnières-sur-Seine, France. C. H. Miller and E. W. Bowditch, working closely with Trumbauer, designed the gardens and landscape. The Preservation Society of Newport County purchased The Elms in 1962, and opened the house to the public. The Elms was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971, and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1996.
Ogden Codman Jr. was an American architect and interior decorator in the Beaux-Arts styles, and co-author with Edith Wharton of The Decoration of Houses (1897), which became a standard in American interior design.
The Parisian firm of Jules Allard and Sons, in business between 1878 and Allard's death in 1907, was one of the most notable interior decorating houses of the turn of the twentieth century. The firm opened a New York branch in 1885. Allard's Paris origin reinforced the firm's credibility in composing "high style" French interiors for the American elite, at times employing authentic boiseries, mirrors and chimneypieces, skillfully extended and adapted for results that were comprehensive, acceptably correct from an academic point of view and socially conservative. Architectural fittings and sculpture were provided from the firm's ateliers, as well as furniture and upholstery, carpets, curtains and hangings.
Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site is a historic house museum in Hyde Park, New York, United States. It became a National Historic Landmark in 1940. It is owned and operated by the National Park Service.
Marble House, a Gilded Age mansion located at 596 Bellevue Avenue in Newport, Rhode Island, was built from 1888 to 1892 as a summer cottage for Alva and William Kissam Vanderbilt and was designed by Richard Morris Hunt in the Beaux Arts style. It was unparalleled in opulence for an American house when it was completed in 1892.
Chateau-sur-Mer is one of the first grand Bellevue Avenue mansions of the Gilded Age in Newport, Rhode Island. Located at 474 Bellevue Avenue, it is now owned by the Preservation Society of Newport County and is open to the public as a museum. Chateau-sur-Mer's grand scale and lavish parties ushered in the Gilded Age of Newport, as it was the most palatial residence in Newport until the Vanderbilt houses in the 1890s. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2006.
The Staatsburgh State Historic Site preserves a Beaux-Arts mansion designed by McKim, Mead, and White and the home's surrounding landscape in the hamlet of Staatsburg, Dutchess County, New York, United States. The historic site is located within Ogden Mills & Ruth Livingston Mills State Park. The mansion, a New York State Historic Site, is considered a fine example of the great estates built during the Gilded Age.
Kingscote is a Gothic Revival mansion and house museum at Bowery Street and Bellevue Avenue in Newport, Rhode Island, designed by Richard Upjohn and built in 1839. As one of the first summer "cottages" constructed in Newport, it is now a National Historic Landmark. It was remodeled and extended by George Champlin Mason and later by Stanford White. It was owned by the King family from 1864 until 1972, when it was given to the Preservation Society of Newport County.
The Bellevue Avenue Historic District is located along and around Bellevue Avenue in Newport, Rhode Island, United States. Its property is almost exclusively residential, including many of the Gilded Age mansions built as summer retreats around the turn of the 20th century by the extremely wealthy, including the Vanderbilt and Astor families. Many of the homes represent pioneering work in the architectural styles of the time by major American architects.
Estherwood is a late 19th-century mansion located on the campus of The Masters School in Dobbs Ferry, New York, United States. It was the home of industrial tycoon James Jennings McComb, who supported Masters financially in its early years when his daughters attended. The house's octagonal library was the first section built. It had been attached to McComb's previous home, but he had felt it deserved a house more in keeping with its style and so had architect Albert Buchman design Estherwood built around it.
The Elkins Estate is an American 42-acre (170,000 m2) estate located in Elkins Park, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. The estate contains seven buildings, the most notable being Elstowe Manor and Chelten House, mansions designed by Horace Trumbauer.
The Cornelius Vanderbilt II House was a large mansion built in 1883 at 1 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City. It occupied the frontage along the west side of Fifth Avenue from West 57th Street up to West 58th Street at Grand Army Plaza. The home was sold in 1926 and demolished to make way for the Bergdorf Goodman Building.
The Mrs. William B. Astor House was a mansion on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City, at 840-841 Fifth Avenue on the northeast corner of 65th Street, completed in 1896 and demolished around 1926.
The Lucy Drexel Dahlgren House is a historic home located at 15 East 96th Street between Fifth and Madison Avenues in Manhattan, New York City. It is on the border between the Carnegie Hill, Upper East Side, and East Harlem neighborhoods on the Upper East Side, within the Upper East Side Historic District. A private house used at one time as a convent, it was built in 1915–16 for Lucy Wharton Drexel Dahlgren. It is a New York City Landmark and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Triple Palace, also known as the William H. Vanderbilt House, was an elaborate mansion at 640 Fifth Avenue between 51st Street and 52nd Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The urban mansion, completed in 1882 to designs by John B. Snook and Charles B. Atwood, was owned by members of the Vanderbilt family. It was composed of two portions: a single-family unit to the south and a two-family unit to the north. William Henry Vanderbilt owned and lived in the southern portion. Two of his daughters, Emily Thorn Vanderbilt and Margaret Louisa Vanderbilt Shepard, along with their respective families, occupied the two residences in the northern portion.
The Breakers left family ownership three decades ago, when the Preservation Society bought it for $365,000, a pittance—but let Paul, Gladys and their mother continue summering on the third floor, formerly servants' quarters. Mother died in 1998 but her children summer there still, hidden from the hundreds of thousands of tourists who explore below.
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