The Breakers is a Vanderbilt mansion located on Ochre Point Avenue, Newport, Rhode Island, United States on the Atlantic Ocean. It is a National Historic Landmark, a contributing property to the Bellevue Avenue Historic District, and is owned and operated by the Preservation Society of Newport County.

The Breakers was built as the Newport summer home of Cornelius Vanderbilt II, a member of the wealthy United States Vanderbilt family. It is built in a style often described as Goût Rothschild. Designed by renowned architect Richard Morris Hunt and with interior decoration by Jules Allard and Sons and Ogden Codman, Jr., the 70-room mansion has approximately 65,000 sq ft (6,000 m²) of living space. The home was constructed between 1893 and 1895 at a cost of more than $12 million (approximately $331 million in today’s dollars adjusted for inflation). The Ochre Point Avenue entrance is marked by sculpted iron gates and the 30-foot (9.1 m) high walkway gates are part of a 12-foot-high limestone and iron fence that borders the property on all but the ocean side. The 250 ft × 120 ft (76 m × 37 m) dimensions of the five-story mansion are aligned symmetrically around a central Great Hall.

Part of a 13-acre (53,000 m²) estate on the seagirt cliffs of Newport, it faces east overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

As the previous mansion on the property owned by Pierre Lorillard IV burned in 1892, Cornelius Vanderbilt II insisted that the building be made as fireproof as possible and as such, the structure of the building used steel trusses and no wooden parts. He even required that the furnace be located away from the house, under Ochre Point Avenue; in winter there is an area in front of the main gate over the furnace where snow and ice always melt.

The designers created an interior using marble imported from Italy and Africa plus rare woods and mosaics from countries around the world. It also included architectural elements (such as the library mantel) purchased from chateaux in France.

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. Indeed, “if the Gilded Age were to be summed up by a single house, that house would have to be The Breakers.”^[3] In 1895, the year of its completion, The Breakers was the largest, most opulent house in the Newport area. It represents the taste of an American upper class—socially ambitious but lacking a noble pedigree—whose determination to imitate and surpass the European aristocracy in lifestyle; a taste and ambition which was cynically noted by many members of the European upper-classes. However, this cynicism, coupled with assumptions of vulgarity, was not so deeply rooted that it prevented the daughters of these lavish houses and their associated dollars marrying into the European aristocracy.^[4]

Vanderbilt died from a cerebral hemorrhage caused by a second stroke in 1899 at the age of 55, leaving The Breakers to his wife, Alice Gwynne Vanderbilt. She outlived her husband by 35 years and died at the age of 89 in 1934. In her will, The Breakers was given to her youngest daughter, Countess Gladys Széchenyi (1886–1965), essentially because Gladys lacked American property. Also, none of Alice’s other children were interested in the property while Gladys had always loved the estate.

The Breakers survived the great New England Hurricane of 1938 with minimal damage and minor flooding of the grounds.

In 1948, Gladys leased the high-maintenance property to the non-profit Preservation Society of Newport County for $1 a year. The Society bought the Breakers in 1972 for $365,000 from Countess Sylvia Szapary, the daughter of Gladys. However, the agreement with the Society allows the family to continue to live on the third floor, which is not open to the public. Countess Sylvia lived there part-time until her death on March 1, 1998. Gladys and Paul Szapary, Sylvia’s children, continue to spend summers at the house.^[5]

Although the mansion is owned by the Society, the original furnishings displayed throughout the house are still owned by the family.

It is now the most-visited attraction in Rhode Island with approximately 300,000 visitors annually and is open year-round for tours.

In April 2009, the museum stopped offering personalized tours by tour guides, owing to a decision by management. Patrons now receive standard audio headsets.

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