Points of Interest


Welcome to Newport’s world famous Cliff Walk, a public access walk and trail along the majestic Atlantic Ocean shoreline. The Trail runs North to South, beginning at Memorial Boulevard at the top of Easton’s Beach and ends at the exit at Bailey’s Beach.

Please allow for 2 or more hours to walk the entire 3.5 mile length.


The Cliff Walk is one of New England’s most popular attractions – the only National Recreational Trail within a National Historic District in the United States. The Walk not only offers magnificent views high over the water, but glimpses of many historic “Gilded Age” mansions with their lawns spilling majestically out to the Walk. As you travel along the Walk, note the 16 trail markers, each of which features a QR code that your smart phone can scan for more information on that particular site.


Easton’s Beach – Trail marker #1


Relax and play on the white sand ocean beach - surf the waves, ride the beautiful 1950's carousel, visit the Save the Bay Exploration Center and Aquarium, or get married in a gorgeous beach front ceremony and celebrate in the newly refurbished ballroom.  There’s also a “Snack Shack” featuring lobster and clam rolls that’s open during the summer months.

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The Chanler – Cliff Lawn – Trail marker #2


The Chanler was designed for New York Congressman, John Winthrop Chanler, and his wife, Margaret Astor Ward (great-granddaughter of John Jacob Astor- the first multimillionaire in America), as a summer home. The house cost approximately $300,000 at the time of construction. The Chanler family hosted a variety of notable figures while in Newport including, Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. “Cliff Lawn”, as the property became known as, stayed in the Chanler family for approximately 50 years.

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Forty Steps – Trail Marker #3


Newport tradition holds that David Priestly Hall built the first Forty Steps in the 1830s so that his children could have access to a beach on his property at the base of the rocky shore.

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The Overlook – Trail Marker #4

Please note that due to needed improvements, this section of the Cliff Walk is closed until further notice. Visitors are asked to please follow the detour in place. 

Time to pause and gaze out over “Easton’s Bay.” Just to the right of Easton’s Beach is Middleton, RI. incorporated in 1743 and the “middle” city on Aquidneck Island, lying between Newport and Portsmouth. Note the majestic bell tower of St. George's, a private school on the National Register of Historic Places. 

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Ochre Court – Trail Marker #5


Designed in the French Chateau Revival Style, by internationally known and trained architect Richard Morris Hunt, Ochre Court is the second largest mansion in Newport.

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Vinland Estate – Trail Marker #6


Designed in 1882 by famed architects Peabody and Stearns, Vinland Estate was first built for Catherine Lorillard Wolfe, a tobacco heiress. The home is believed to have been inspired by the poem “The Skeleton in Armor,” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

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The Breakers – Trail Marker #7


The Breakers is the largest and most grand of Newport's summer "cottages" and a symbol of the Vanderbilt family's social and financial preeminence in turn of the century America.

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Angelsea - Walter Lewis House – Trail Marker #8


Angelsea, a seaside Victorian cottage along the Cliff Walk, was designed by Detlef Lienau, a German architect who is credited with having introduced the French style to American building construction, notably the mansard roof and all its decorative flourishes.

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Rosecliff – Trail Marker #9


Commissioned by Nevada silver heiress Theresa Fair Oelrichs in 1899, architect Stanford White modeled Rosecliff after the Grand Trianon, the garden retreat of French kings at Versailles. After the house was completed in 1902, at a reported cost of $2.5 million, Mrs. Oelrichs hosted fabulous entertainments here, including a fairy tale dinner and a party featuring famed magician Harry Houdini.

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Beechwood – Trail Marker #10

Beechwood, located at 580 Bellevue Avenue in Newport, was designed by Calvert Vaux and Andrew Jackson Downing, created in the Italianate style between the years of 1852 and 1853.

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Marble House – Trail Marker #11


Marble House was completed in 1892 for Mr. and Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt. Mr. Vanderbilt was the grandson of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, who established the family's fortune in steamships and the New York Central Railroad. His older brother, Cornelius II built The Breakers. His wife Alva was a leading society hostess, and envisioned Marble House as her "temple to the arts" in America.

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Chinese Tea House – Trail Marker #12


The Chinese Tea House was built by the firm Hunt and Hunt.  It overlooked the Cliff Walk on the Marble House property owned by Alva Vanderbilt, the previous wife of William Kissam Vanderbilt.

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Rough Point – Trail Marker #13


Rough Point Museum features an art collection and a historic landscape that tell the story of heiress, philanthropist, and preservationist, Doris Duke (1912-1993).

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Lands End – Trail Marker #14


Land’s End was designed in 1864 and completed in 1865 by John Hubbard Sturgis for Samuel G. Ward, a Boston banker. It got the name Land’s End from the colonial name of the reef that it is built upon. 

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The Waves – Trail Marker #15


Located along the end of Ledge Road in Newport, Rhode Island, stands architect John Russell Pope’s own house, The Waves. This house was built between 1926 and 1928 on the foundation of a previous summer cottage, The Breakwater.

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Bailey’s Beach – Trail Marker #16


Bailey’s Beach is part of the private Spouting Rock Beach Association.  It was founded in the 1890s and today approximately 500 families belong to the Association.  The organization has attracted notable members of nearby families such as the Vanderbilts, Astors and Kennedys.

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