A Gilded Revival

In its recent reimagining, The Vanderbilt offers a seductive time hop into Newport’s famed turn-of-the-20th-century opulence.

- By Tracey Minkin

Visiting Mansion-Blessed Newport, Rhode Island, can feel like an existential case of Gilded Age FOMO. Until now. Occupying a circa-1909 redbrick Georgian built by American aristocrat Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, the namesake hotel by Auberge Resorts Collection will convince you that you are to the manor born.

How does one not feel like a member of The Four Hundred when luxuriating in The Vanderbilt’s public spaces, sumptuously reimagined by Dallas-based SWOON, The Studio and revealed in late 2021? The sorcery was intentional. “We created spaces that felt like rooms you would find in a historic manor,” says founder Samantha Sano. In the