Marble House

Another former Vanderbilt property, Marble House got its name from the 500,000 cubic feet of marble from Africa, Italy and American. Constructed between the years of 1888 and 1892, this summer cottage, as it was referred to, cost about $11 millions to build and resembled the Petit Trianon in Versailles. Tours of this house and the other mansions of the Preservation Society of Newport County are...

From the Cliff Walk, you can look at but not touch the estate's 1913 addition, a Chinese tea house, which is protected from nonpaying visitors by barbed wire fences.

Visitors can listen to a headset as they explore the home at their own pace.

One of the most opulent of the Newport mansions, Marble House contains 500,000 cubic feet of marble. The house was built from 1888 to 1892 by William Vanderbilt, who gave it as a gift to his wife, Alva, for her 39th birthday. The house was designed by the architect Richard Morris Hunt who took inspiration from the Petit Trianon at Versailles. The Vanderbilts divorced in 1895 and Alva married...

Architect Richard Morris Hunt outdid himself for his clients William and Alva Vanderbilt. Several types of marble were used both outside and in, with a lavish hand that rivals the palaces of the Sun King, especially Le Petit Trianon at Versailles. It reaches its apogee in the ballroom, which is encrusted with three kinds of gold. It cost William $11 million to build and decorate Marble House,...

The Background
Unveiled in 1892, Marble House was one of the earliest mansions on Bellevue Avenue, and the first of many built for the Vanderbilts in Newport. Mr. William K. Vanderbilt...

Marble House is a Gilded Age mansion in Newport, Rhode Island, now open to the public as a museum run by the Newport Preservation Society. It was designed by the society architect Richard Morris Hunt. For an American house, it was unparalleled in design and opulence when it was built. Its temple-front portico, which also serves as a porte-cochère, has been compared to that of the White...