Several years ago I toured some of the mansions of Newport, Rhode Island – the place where anyone who was anyone had a summer “cottage” in the waning years of the 1800s. The very wealthy heirs of New York Central railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, were of course, no exception. William Kissam Vanderbilt had a mansion in Newport called Marble House, and his elder brother Cornelius II had The Breakers. While Marble House is remarkably lavish, it lacks the typical Vanderbilt aesthetic that one would find elsewhere – mostly because the home was designed for and by William’s wife Alva. The Breakers, on the other hand, has many of the obvious symbols representing both transportation and the Vanderbilts – the caduceus, acorns, and oak leaves.
Sketch by architect Richard Morris Hunt of the gates for The Breakers
Cornelius Vanderbilt II bought the property on which the Breakers sits in 1885. The house on the property was wooden, and burned down in 1892. After that fire, Vanderbilt commissioned Richard Morris Hunt to design a new summer home. Designed to resemble the palaces of Italy, the home had a total of 70 rooms and five floors. The Breakers is certainly one of the most extravagant homes in Newport, a symbol of the Gilded Age, and a representation of the fortunes amassed by the railroad barons of the United States.
1895 photos of The Breakers from the Library of Congress.
Despite my visit several years ago, I never managed to post the photos, for some reason. So here are some photos from The Breakers. If you missed parts one and two in the series, you can also find them here:
The Mansions that the Railroad Built, Part 2: Hyde Park
The Mansions that the Railroad Built, Part 1: Marble House
For the next three weeks, this blog will be on a temporary hiatus as I am traveling in eastern Europe. I will likely be checking in on social media, so be sure to follow I Ride the Harlem Line on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.