Enjoy a family audio tour experience at The Breakers, the historic Vanderbilt summer "cottage" in Newport, Rhode Island. Introducing The Breakers as its own tour guide, the new family experience allows youngsters and parents to imagine themselves personally witnessing the history made in this great Gilded Age chateau.
As the house shares its secrets, you meet family members and staff, as well as fanciful creatures like the friendly dolphin hiding under the grand staircase, the lions of the Music Room and the dragons in the Dining Room. You experience a summer day in the life of one of the Vanderbilt children, you meet the masters of the kitchen - Monsieur Le Chef and his colleague, The Butler. You take an imaginary slide down the grand stairs on a silver serving tray, listen as imaginary acrobats pile 50 feet high to measure the Great Hall, and learn all the "rules" the children had to live by at The Breakers.
The tour has been created by The Preservation Society of Newport County based on a decade of research, oral history from family members and staff who lived there as children, and the popular main audio tour "The Breakers Revealed" which premiered in 2009. It uses extensively-documented historic facts to launch young people's imagination on a flight of fancy through one of the 19th century's grandest private residences, and introduces them to a time and place far removed from the present day.
Using imagination, the tour introduces themes of architecture, design, décor and the importance of historic preservation from a uniquely personal point of view.
The tour is offered continuously at The Breakers as an option on the Explorer© audio tour players provided to all visitors at no additional charge. Presented in partnership with Antenna Audio, the world leader in museum audio tours, and Sonalysts Studios in Waterford, Connecticut, the 45-minute experience can be enjoyed by youngsters as their parents take "The Breakers Revealed" audio tour which follows the same route and timing. Visitors can stop as often as they like as they travel through the house, and can explore more information at subject stops along the route.