Marble House is a 50-room Beaux-Arts “cottage” on Newport’s Bellevue Avenue, erected between 1888 and 1892 for Alva and William K. Vanderbilt at a reported cost of $11 million—$7 million of it for the 500,000 cubic feet of marble that gave the estate its name. Gifted to Alva for her 39th birthday, the house’s unabashed grandeur helped usher Newport from shingled villas to stone palaces and is now interpreted for the public by the Preservation Society of Newport County.
Origins and Architectural Setting
Architect Richard Morris Hunt drew on the Petit Trianon at Versailles, facing the U-shaped structure with Corinthian-pilastered white Westchester marble that hides four internal levels behind what appears to be a two-story façade. Service rooms occupy the basement, reception rooms the ground floor, family suites the second floor, and a concealed third story houses the servant quarters, a hierarchy that allowed Alva to stage society events with clock-work precision. After divorcing William in 1895, she retained the property and in 1913 commissioned a cliff-edge Chinese Tea House that later hosted her women-suffrage rallies.
Signature Rooms Curated by Alva Vanderbilt
Stair Hall – Guests entered to walls and a sweeping staircase of yellow Sienna marble; the wrought-iron and gilt-bronze balustrade is copy of a Versailles rail.
Grand Salon (Gold Ballroom) – Designed in the Louis XIV style, this salon doubled as a ballroom; carved wood panels gilded with 22-karat gold depict classical trophies, while a baroque ceiling painting of Minerva presides over green silk furnishings inspired by the Louvre’s Galerie d’Apollo.
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Dining Room – Walled in rose-toned Numidian marble, the dining room glitters with gilt-bronze capitals and a fireplace copied from Versailles’ Salon d’Hercule; its lavish fittings satisfied Alva’s desire for a princely banqueting space.
Library (Morning Room) – A more intimate Rococo retreat, the library combines carved-walnut bookcases by Gilbert Cuel with Jules Allard decoration, balancing scholarly purpose and social display.
Gothic Room – Alva’s personal gallery for medieval and Renaissance treasures features features a Caen-limestone chimneypiece (and associated stone carving) copied from the 15th-century Jacques Cœur House in Bourges, and custom Gothic-revival furniture by Cuel, creating a dramatic, chapel-like contrast to the house’s French classicism.
Mrs. Vanderbilt’s Bedroom – Upstairs, her Louis XIV bedroom centers on a 1721 Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini ceiling of Athena, relocated from Venice’s Palazzo Pisani Moretta, underscoring Alva’s penchant for authentic European art embedded in modern luxury.
Marble House thus survives not merely as architecture but as a curated portfolio of rooms that broadcast Alva Vanderbilt’s aesthetic convictions and social ambitions with unfiltered, documentable splendor.
