Overview

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.

Cornelius Vanderbilt II purchased the grounds in 1885 for $450,000 (equivalent to $15.7 million in 2024). 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.

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. 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. 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.