Newport, in Narragansett Bay, also made its name as a shipbuilding town, and it is still an important yachting port. Its main role, however, has been as an exclusive summer resort patronized by New York society which has preserved much evidence of its past.
The main tourist attractions of Newport are its sumptuous holiday residences of the 18th
and 19th centuries, ranging from English-style country houses to neo-baroque palaces. The most splendid of them all is The Breakers, a 70-room mansion in the style of an Italian palazzo built for Cornelius Vanderbilt in 1895, still with its original decoration and furnishings. Others worth visiting are the Marble House, The Elms, Rosecliff Hunter House, Belcourt Castle. the Victorian-style Chateau-sur-Mer and the Samuel Whitehorne House with its exquisite 18th c. interior. John F. and Jacqueline Kennedy spent their honeymoon in Hammersmith Farm. From the 3 mi. long Cliff Walk, there are superb views of Rhode Island Bay and the houses of Newport.
Two features of unique interest in Newport are the oldest Synagogue in the United States (1763), with a number of treasures, including the oldest Torah in North America, and the Redwood Library and Athenaeum (1750), the earliest library in the United States that is still in use. For tennis fans there are the International Tennis Hall of Fame and the Tennis Museum.
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