#gilded-age

The Mansion is a National Historic Site preserved by the National Parks Service, so it was free for us to tour, thanks to Ronnie’s lifetime senior pass. That thing has already paid for itself even though he just got it the end of May. Needless to say, we are looking forward to using it much more in the future.

The mansion was owned by Frederick Vanderbilt and his wife as one of their homes. It was a gilded-age home but was considered their smaller country house and not as “fancy” as their other homes. Since Ronnie & I have seen some of the Newport mansions, we understood that it wasn’t to the level of those, but it was still an extraordinary home. We had an excellent tour guide from the NPS and enjoyed hearing about the lives of this family and learning how the NPS came to be in possession of the home. It is also important to mention that this is the only gilded-age home that the NPS preserves.

By the end of the tour, I wasn’t feeling well, so we called it a day and headed back to the RV. We all were glad we visited the Vanderbilt Mansion and recommend it to anyone that is in the area.

Up next–trying to get Lindsey back to Louisiana.

**All photos in this post were taken with an iPhone X and are unedited