During the Gilded Age, many of the wealthiest Americans established Newport, Rhode Island, as their premier summertime escape, with families like the Vanderbilts and Astors hiring the era’s leading architects—including Richard Morris Hunt, Stanford White, and Horace Trumbauer—to build grand seaside “cottages” in this small enclave on Aquidneck Island.
Today, Newport remains one of America’s most popular summer idylls. In addition to those remaining mansions—the best of them, from the Breakers to Marble House have long since become museums, and are open to the public through the Preservation Society of Newport County—the city’s landscape encourages perambulatory discovery, whether it’s by exploring its walkable downtown district or taking a stroll along the breathtaking Cliff Walk, with its scenic views of both the sea and the 19th-century “cottages” that loom over it.
(Click 'Download Document' below to read the full article)
