This Newport, Rhode Island, Hotel Is a Perfect Off-season Getaway — and It Just Got a Gorgeous Redesign

The Vanderbilt, Auberge Resorts Collection, occupying a Georgian-style house in downtown Newport, Rhode Island, now has 33 reimagined guest rooms and historically inspired interiors.

Newport, Rhode Island, has had something of a resurgence lately. That’s partly thanks to the popularity of HBO’s recent historical drama, The Gilded Age, which featured scenes filmed in the coastal town’s famously opulent mansions on and around Bellevue Avenue, including The Breakers and Marble House. Both were commissioned by members of the Vanderbilt clan: Cornelius II and his wife, Alice, and Cornelius II's brother, William and his wife, Alva, respectively.

The family plays a role in another bit of current Newport buzz: the reimagining of The Vanderbilt, Auberge Resorts Collection, which occupies the mansion built for Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt (one of Cornelius II’s three sons). Completed in 1909, the Georgian-style house was designed by architect George S. Chappell, not along the cliffs by the ocean, but in the downtown neighborhood, amid the 19th-century townhouses and cobblestone streets. It was used for decades as a YMCA after Alfred donated the property to the organization, but finally became a hotel in the ‘90s.

This month, the property unveiled its latest transformation after a two-year, top-to-bottom renovation. What began in 2020 culminates as the last of its 33 guest rooms were completed by Dallas-based design firm Swoon, the Studio. The goal of the project, according to Swoon’s founder Samantha Sano and her business partner, Joslyn Taylor, was to “embrace the mansion’s Georgian architecture and the simplicity and honesty of American colonial design.”

For inspiration, they looked to Alfred and another former owner of the building: Doris Duke, also a famous Newport resident who lived in the giant cliffside mansion Rough Point.

“After graduating from college, Alfred set off on a two-year world tour cut short by the sudden death of his father. We imagined him as a bit of a rebel pulled back to responsibility, and the mansion he built as a place where he could retreat from the expectations of his family and pay homage to his past adventures,” Sano says. And when thinking about Duke, Sano and Taylor mention her “passionate sense of adventure — during her life, she was both a foreign correspondent and a competitive surfer.”

The ground floor spaces were conceived to serve as a “living room” for Newport, with a cozy, wood-paneled restaurant that’s especially ideal for chilly (i.e. off-season) meals; there’s also a library lounge and a natural light–filled conservatory lush with plant life. Walls are saturated in a palette of muted greens, blues, and ochre, while guest rooms are filled with a mix of sculptural objects, vintage pieces, custom furnishings, and hand-drawn wallcoverings. (“We purchased items from local antique stores in Newport, as well as on an epic three-day sourcing trip at the Round Top antiques fair in Texas,” says Taylor.) The property also features a series of commissioned photographs by artist Maxine Helfman inspired by 19th-century still life portraits.

Rooms flow seamlessly, one into the other, making it feel not like a hotel, but like the stately residence it was originally meant to be, and an ideal option for those who want to live out their own Gilded Age fantasies — at least for a weekend. For Sano and Taylor, “this project was all about authenticity, soulfulness, and comfort.”

Learn more about the newly reimagined Vanderbilt, Auberge Resorts Collection, and book your stay here.

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