Newport Mansions: MLK Day free admission at Breakers, Marble House. Breakers gates re-do.

Newport Mansions Offer Free Admission on MLK Day

The Preservation Society of Newport County will offer free admission to The Breakers and Marble House on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Monday, January 20.

The Breakers and Marble House – two National Historic Landmarks built during the Gilded Age by members of the Vanderbilt family – will be open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on MLK Day, with last entry at 4 p.m. 

This offer does not include The Breakers Third Floor Preservation in Progress or Beneath The Breakers specialty tours. Because the number of visitors inside each house at any one time is limited, guests may experience a wait prior to entering The Breakers or Marble House.  

For more information, please visit www.NewportMansions.org.

Breakers Gates getting restored

The two main gates – weighing 5,600 pounds each – and the crown and two side gates are being removed by crane and will soon be replaced with temporary gates. Until the temporary gates are in place, visitors to The Breakers will access the grounds through the entrance on the Shepard Avenue side of the property.

The restoration work, needed after years of corrosion by Newport’s salt air, rain and winter ice, will be done by Stratford Steel in Connecticut. Each piece will be sandblasted to bare metal, treated with zinc thermal spray coating, and finished with a marine-grade paint coating system applied with epoxy primer and black urethane top coatings. Heavily deteriorated components that are beyond repair will be duplicated and replaced. 

The entire project is expected to cost $500,000 and should be completed in April.

The Preservation Society of Newport County, Rhode Island, is a nonprofit organization accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. It is dedicated to preserving and interpreting the area’s historic architecture, landscapes, decorative arts and social history. Its 11 historic properties – seven of them National Historic Landmarks – span more than 250 years of American architectural and social development.

For more information, please visit www.NewportMansions.org.