The Breakers is Newport's largest Gilded Age mansion and the grandest of the Vanderbilt family's summer "cottages." Cornelius Vanderbilt II commissioned it in 1892 after fire destroyed the original house on the site. Determined not to repeat that mistake, he banned wood from the structural components and buried the boiler under the front lawn.

The result, completed in 1895, was a 70-room palazzo covering an acre of footprint. Three times the size of the White House, it cost $7 million to build. Cornelius enjoyed it for barely a year before a debilitating stroke. He died in 1899, aged 55. A Vanderbilt lived on the third floor, in the old servants' quarters, until 2018.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours trace Gilded Age Newport through The Breakers. They connect the mansion to the Vanderbilt dynasty, the social rituals of America's grandest summer resort, and the gradual unravelling of a fortune that once seemed inexhaustible.