The Breakers was the center of attention, the center of fame, and the center of envy without being a center of power. The house stands as a temple to excess.

The United States, a country founded on antiroyalist principles, would, only twenty years after its revolutionary burst into existence, produce the progenitor of a family that would come to hold itself up as American royalty, with the titles and palaces to prove it. But their empire would last for less than a hundred years before collapsing under

In its 77 years of existence, The Breakers saw the equivalent of nearly $218 million evaporate into thin air.

This is the story of the extraordinary rise and epic fall of the Vanderbilt dynasty. This is the story of the greatest American fortune ever squandered.

The Breakers is the grandest and most opulent of Newport’s Gilded Age mansions, and it remains the most popular tourist attraction in the state of Rhode Island.