The Vanderbilt family's summer cottage in Newport, Rhode Island, is The Breakers.
Cornelius Vanderbilt II commissioned the mansion after acquiring the Newport property in 1885. An earlier house on the site burned in 1892, so Vanderbilt hired architect Richard Morris Hunt to create a much grander and more fire-resistant replacement. Built between 1893 and 1895, the new Breakers used masonry and steel trusses, with its boiler placed underground and away from the main building.
Although Newport's grand estates were traditionally called “cottages,” The Breakers is a 70-room Renaissance Revival mansion. Its interiors were designed by Jules Allard and Sons and Ogden Codman Jr., using marble, mosaics, rare woods, and elaborate classical details. The scale reflected the wealth and social ambitions of the Vanderbilt family during America's Gilded Age.
The Breakers is sometimes confused with Marble House, another Newport mansion built for Vanderbilt relatives. Marble House belonged to William K. and Alva Vanderbilt; The Breakers was built for William's older brother, Cornelius Vanderbilt II.