THE American seaside resort was invented in Newport, Rhode Island. Some of the wealthiest families in the US started building extravagant mansions, ironically called summer cottages, during the so-called Gilded Age in the late 19th century. Anyone who became addicted to the recent TV series of the same name, written by Julian Fellowes of Downtown Abbey fame, googled locations for filming to discover that many of the scenes were shot in the former Newport getaways of the Vanderbilts, Astors and Morgans, including The Breakers, Marble House and Chateau-sur-Mer.
Several of these plush piles are open to the public and like Highclere Castle in the UK, the home of the fictional Crawleys in Downtown Abbey,
