A house for the summer season
Cornelius Vanderbilt II, a member of one of America’s wealthiest families, bought the land on Ochre Point in 1885. After the earlier house burned in 1892, Richard Morris Hunt designed The Breakers for him and his wife, Alice, and it was completed in 1895.
Alice and Gladys
Cornelius died in 1899. Alice outlived him by 35 years and, on her death in 1934, left The Breakers to their youngest daughter, Countess Gladys Széchenyi.
Opened to the public
In 1948 the ground floor was opened for tours run by The Preservation Society of Newport County, while Gladys kept a private apartment upstairs. The Society bought the house from her heirs in 1972, and much of its furniture was given to the Society.



