Marble House, built in Newport between 1888 and 1892 as Alva and William Kissam Vanderbilt’s summer home, became one of the grand residences that transformed the city’s seasonal character during the Gilded Age. Designed by Richard Morris Hunt in the Beaux Arts style, it was famed for extraordinary scale, expense, and lavish interiors created with imported marble, historic ceiling paintings, and French-inspired decoration. After her 1895 divorce, Alva Vanderbilt kept the house and later used its Chinese Tea House for women’s suffrage rallies, giving it a political role as well as a social one. Now a museum, it endures as a major architectural and cultural symbol of the era.

Photo: Wikipedia · Public domain

Photo: Wikipedia · Public domain

Photo: Wikipedia · Public domain

Photo: Wikipedia · Public domain

Newport, Rhode Island · USA