--- title: "Progress, Preservation, and the Big Business of Newport, Rhode Island." url: https://stacklist.com/card/db1cf9a1-59f2-41d0-bb45-d529fdbedac3 source_url: "https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/travel-guide/a71930340/newport-rhode-island-evolution-legacy/" stack: https://stacklist.com/stack/04b6f85b-6eaa-4de0-937b-ff1a65fb96aa summary: "Newport, Rhode Island has maintained its authentic character and nostalgic appeal despite rising home prices and increased tourism, largely due to strict liquor licensing and land conservation efforts. The Heritage Restaurant Group exemplifies this preservation philosophy by maintaining original establishments like Brick Alley Pub without corporate modifications." tags: "newport-rhode-island, heritage-preservation, summer-destinations, luxury-tourism, gilded-age, restaurant-culture, real-estate" key_entities: "Newport, Rhode Island (location), Heritage Restaurant Group (organization), Nick Schorsch (person), Brick Alley Pub & Restaurant (location), Cornelius Vanderbilt II (person), The Breakers (location), Marble House (location), Aquidneck Island Land Trust (organization), Trudy Coxe (person), Flo's Clam Shack (location), old-money-aesthetics (concept)" classification: "analysis" content_hash: "sha256:29f3c014482841f05f9d0b84cab75d302740b838814a1c7bbc75bd27d891d6a7" acp_version: "0.2" token_counts_approximate: 2282 visibility: public agent_accessible: true status: "final" --- # Progress, Preservation, and the Big Business of Newport, Rhode Island. 5 min read Change even the slightest thing about a summer destination and the regulars will insist you’ve ruined it. A bagel shop other than Goldberg’s opens on the East End, and someone declares that the Hamptons are over. The shops on Nantucket, another will sigh, are choked with influencers with no regard for the island’s history. The Four Winds Craft Guild recently went so far as to post a "No Influencers" sign warding them away. Even the Hudson Valley—beloved for its farm stands, thrift shop, and unbothered charm—has a sprawling new One&Only resort on the way. It seems like every great summer destination eventually becomes a casualty of its own success. After all, summer spots don’t sell just sunshine. They trade in nostalgia, something that’s harder to pin down and that many destinations have struggled to preserve. Which makes Newport, Rhode Island something of an anomaly. Despite soaring home prices, some Michelin Guide attention, and endless streams of The Gilded Age tourists and TikTok girlies chasing “ old money aesthetics ,” Newport still feels stubbornly, reassuringly like Newport. New demographics are discovering the town through different cultural touchstones, but they’re arriving at the same thing: a place that still feels like it has forever. Courtesy Heritage Restaurant Group When the Heritage Restaurant Group bought Newport’s Brick Alley Pub & Restaurant in 2024, CEO Nick Schorsch had instruction: don’t change a thing. At the Brick Alley Pub & Restaurant , that philosophy feels literal. Its walls are lined almost completely with stuff— American flags, concert posters, an entire Chevy pickup truck—the type of which can only be accumulated over decades, not manufactured overnight. When this 40 year-old, family-owned restaurant was purchased by the Rhode Island-based Heritage Restaurant Group in 2024, founder and CEO Nick Schorsch gave his team one simple instruction: don’t change a thing. Not a single tchotchke came down. Heritage even fought to bring back Brick Alley’s beloved salad bar which had shuttered during the pandemic—not because salad bars suddenly felt fashionable again, but because generations of customers expected it to be there. “When you look at the Brick Alley, it looks real, not like some corporate ephemera strategy,” says Schorsch. “Those kinds of things matter to people here.” A 1957 party at Newport’s Marble House, which was built for Alva and William K. Vanderbilt. Bettmann // Getty Images The Marble House today is a museum open to the public and a National Historic Landmark. Courtesy Discover Newport Heritage applies that philosophy across its portfolio. Recipes stay where they belong, even if it means serving a dozen different clam chowders under one corporate umbrella. And at Flo’s Clam Shack in neighboring Middletown, there is not now nor will there ever be any takeout delivery apps—you show up and order at the counter, preferably with sand between your toes and salt in your hair. Unlike other resort towns that have been eager to reinvent themselves, Newport has largely resisted becoming a caricature of itself. The original Newport house known as the Breakers belonged to Pierre Lorillard IV and burned down in 1892. General Photographic Agency // Getty Images Cornelius Vanderbilt II finished building the Breakers we know today, on the same land, in 1895. DEA / M. BORCHI // Getty Images Schorch credits two forces. First, Newport strictly limits liquor licenses, making it difficult for operators to flood the market with interchangeable concepts. Second, the Aquidneck Island Land Trust has spent decades protecting open land in and around Newport, scooping up as many parcels as possible in downtown Newport and all the way up to the Newport Polo grounds in Portsmouth, keeping large-scale development remarkably limited. “Newport has a panache to it, and even in times of economic hardship has never lost its allure,” says Trudy Coxe, CEO and executive director of the Preservation Society of Newport County. “Narragansett Bay provides some of the most glorious summer weather and best yachting conditions in the world. That combination of natural assets with our historical components makes Newport a phenomenal destination.” “Newport has evolved from Gilded Age playground to one of America’s most enduring summer destinations, because each generation seems to understand the assignment.” Preserving that panache is serious business. This year, the society funds two of its most ambitious projects to date. A $7.9 million restoration of the Breakers ’ ocean-facing terrace will return the landmark to its original grandeur while discreetly reinforcing it with hidden steel girding. And this fall, the society will also debut an immersive multimedia tour at the Elms—the first of its kind at an American historic house museum—designed to introduce a new generation to Newport’s Gilded Age legacy . “It’s a different world now,” says Coxe. “We all carry our phones very close to use and there aren’t five minutes that go by without checking our email and Instagram. The old style of education is really old style, so we’re trying to be more forward-looking.” The society’s efforts are money well spent: an economic impact study by Tourism Economics commissioned by the society found that its eleven historic mansion museums generate more than $234 million annually for Rhode Island’s economy while supporting over 1,700 jobs. In Newport, preservation isn’t just performative stewardship. It is economic development. Jason Varney The Chanler at Cliff Walk, a hotel inside a Gilded Age mansion, is a hit with Newport visitors thanks to not only its modern amenities but also the ways in which it hasn’t changed. Consider the recent renovations of the Chanler at Cliff Walk , the boutique hotel housed inside an authentic Gilded Age mansion. During a multi-year renovation of its restaurant, lobby and guest spaces, proprietress Lani Shufelt didn’t set out to recreate the Gilded Age. Instead, she contemplated the era’s DNA, and asked a more nuanced question: if a Gilded Age baron were building this house today, what would it look like? The answer isn’t velvet drapes and crystal chandeliers. Shufelt commissioned handcrafted woodworks, bespoke metals, contemporary furniture, and rooms that feel cosmopolitan and contemporary while remaining perfectly suited to the hotel’s setting. Pass through the new restaurant Remy’s Loose on any given night this summer and you’ll see something extraordinary happening—a new, young crowd enjoying dinner and drinks in the same hotel their parents have loved for years. That is Newport’s greatest trick: The city has never been frozen in amber. It has evolved from Gilded Age playground to Jazz Age resort to naval capital to one of America’s most enduring summer destinations, because each generation seems to understand the assignment: build something new if you must, but leave the place recognizable to the people who fell in love with it in the first place. That's the philosophy guiding the restoration of Castle Hill Inn after a devastating fire earlier this year. The landmark's cedar-shingle roof has been faithfully rebuilt, and over time its fresh shingles will weather back into the familiar patina that guests remember. Smoke and water damage after the February fire forced the mansion's drywall down to the studs, but managing director Brian Young expects that when all guest rooms return in 2027, repeat visitors will find them virtually indistinguishable from how they were before. Because like a good facelift, any renovation or changing of the guard in this town should leave you wondering where the old ends and new begins. Todd Plummer Todd Plummer is a Boston-based writer who covers style, entertainment, and travel. He is a graduate of McGill University and Saint John’s University School of Law. 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