New Tour Offerings to Highlight 2004 Season at the Newport Mansions

(Newport, RI) An exclusive After Hours Tour of The Elms, and a special tour of The Breakers geared to families with children are among the exciting new opportunities awaiting visitors to the Newport Mansions this season.

The Elms After Hours Tour will be offered four times a night beginning at 6 p.m. on Friday nights, May 28, June 4, 11 and 18. Guests will enjoy a guided tour of the first floor of the house, wine and canapés served by tuxedoed waiters on the terrace, and a sunset stroll through the spectacular sunken garden. The 90-minute experience is "as close as to attending a Gilded Age summer party in Newport as you can get," says Preservation Society CEO and Executive Director Trudy Coxe.

Tour sizes are limited, and reserved tickets can be purchased in advance online at www.NewportMansions.org.

Also new this year will be a Family Tour of The Breakers. This tour, offered daily every half hour starting May 21, is designed to appeal to both children and their parents, focusing on stories of how the Vanderbilts lived in this palatial villa. Children taking the tour are appointed "junior preservationists."

The Preservation Society will begin daily operation of The Breakers, The Elms, Marble House, Rosecliff and Chateau-sur-Mer on April 17. All five will remain open 7 days a week through November 11. Green Animals Topiary Garden in Portsmouth will be open daily from May 24 through October 11. Chepstow, Hunter House, Isaac Bell House, Kingscote, and The Breakers Stable and Carriage House will open for the season on June 19 and close on September 17.

From November 12 through January 2, 2005, The Breakers, The Elms and Marble House will remain open daily and each will be decorated for the holiday season.

In addition to the regular tours of the houses and the new Elms After Hours and Breakers Family Tour, visitors will also be able to choose the popular Rooftop and Behind-the-Scenes Tour of The Elms, or the Bellevue Avenue Tour. The Rooftop tour is offered hourly, taking visitors through the kitchens, coal cellar and boiler room, laundry rooms and other work areas, and then up to the third-floor staff living area and, weather permitting, out onto the roof. The Bellevue Avenue Tour, offered once a day Thursdays through Sundays from June 19 to September 17, provides an overview of high society as it once existed along Newport's most fashionable boulevard, as well as admission to The Breakers and one other mansion of the visitor's choice.

Throughout the season, visitors to Rosecliff will be able to enjoy the Newport in the Jazz Age exhibit, with music, fashions, photos, scrapbooks and personal mementos of a unique period in Newport's history, the 1920s and '30s.

Tickets to the Newport Mansions are available online at www.NewportMansions.org, at any of the individual properties, and at the Newport Gateway Center on America's Cup Avenue. For more information about tour schedules and prices, visit the website or call (401) 847-1000.

The Preservation Society of Newport County, Rhode Island is a non-profit educational organization dedicated to preserving and interpreting the area’s historic architecture, landscapes and decorative arts. Its 11 historic properties—five of them National Historic Landmarks—span more than 250 years of American architectural and social development