On one side, the roiling tides of Rhode Island Sound swell against craggy cliffs. Fishermen and diving seabirds work the waters. On the other, some of the most opulent mansions in America rise from expansive lawns and ornamental gardens.

The Cliff Walk, a 3.5-mile National Recreation Trail in Newport, R.I., traces a tantalizing line between untamed nature and Gilded Age shrines to capitalism. The hiker experiences two remarkable worlds at once.

During La Belle Epoque, the island town of Newport was the summering place for the nation’s richest families.  Servants, liveried in the family colors, kept carriages clattering from party to party.

Since the 1850s, locals had used a grass path along these cliffs, and public access was grandfathered in when the palaces were erected around the 1890s. The trail today wends its way past 64 private properties, protected by chain-link fences and high hedges. Ten of the mansions owned by the Preservation Society of Newport County offer public tours.  You can enter from their front sides, off Bellevue Avenue, after you complete the Cliff Walk.

The walk starts at Easton’s Beach. At this north end, The Chanler, a mansion-turned B&B, offers rooms for $895 a night (yes, that includes breakfast). Several other magnificent edifices along the route, along with a few 1960s buildings that look quite out of place, have been incorporated into Salve Regina University. The trail passes “cottages” of the Vanderbilts (shipping and railroads), a manor house recognizable to viewers of The Great Gatsby built by the Oelrichses (silver mining), and out on Rough Point, the abode of heiress Doris Duke (tobacco).

Though the walk begins on level asphalt, at least a third of it is over bouldered banks. Let the hiker beware — sturdy, treaded footwear and reasonable balance are needed; it’s not a place for rambunctious 3-year-olds. Bring food and water, and allow two hours, one way.
You can walk back along city streets, touring any of the open mansions (many are still private homes). It was recycling day when I passed through, and I could not contain my curiosity about the preferences of today’s cliff-dwellers. Although one barrel contained an impressive champagne bottle, the next revealed an unexpectedly modest Kendall-Jackson wine bottle.

The most famous of the residential cathedrals is The Breakers — 70 rooms of gold leaf ceilings, crystal chandeliers, and hand-carved cornices. Cornelius Vanderbilt II, in competition with his brother William who owned Marble House up the street, strove to re-create Versailles on the Rhode Island coast. From fading chateaus in France, Cornelius actually imported and reassembled whole rooms.

The Breakers tour ($16 adult, with package prices available for other mansions) takes 45 minutes, though the wait to get in can take longer than that. A well-informed guide presents the Great Hall and several other ground-floor extravaganzas. Family bedroom suites are shown with their unique fresh and saltwater bathtubs.

The kitchen occupies a separate, connected building to minimize fire risk, and the butler’s pantry boasts an impressive vault for the silver service. But aside from these glimpses of kitchen and pantry, the tour offers little insight into life “below stairs.” You never see servants’ living quarters or the hidden mezzanine passageways that allowed discreet mobility for the staff.  However, a separate “Rooftop and Behind-the-scenes Tour” at The Elms, mansion of the Berwinds (coal), provides just that.

Although The Breakers’ setting on a 13-acre point takes full advantage of the vista, the owners’ eyes obviously turned inward. A four-seasons motif runs through the artwork in two bedrooms and the music room as if the real seasonal beauties out the windows would not suffice. Mrs. Vanderbilt went to the trouble of retiling parts of a mosaic in the men’s retreat, the billiard room, because she found the Roman bath depiction too scandalous.

Actually, two rooms — my favorites — do connect strongly with the seacoast. The morning room gets its comfort and livability from ample, east-facing windows. And the marble balcony called the loggia, a kind of 19th-century air conditioner with a view, controls the sea breezes with louvered glass.

But as I watched cormorants swooping over the lawn, I was drawn away from the overwrought rooms. There may not have been a lot of joy in The Breakers. The family lost two of seven children at young ages, and Cornelius himself suffered a paralyzing stroke at just 53, around the time the house was completed. He died three years later.

Although they went to the trouble of traveling to Rhode Island, the barons of industry used vistas of the ocean as incidental wallpaper, preferring to focus everyone’s attention on their displays of wealth. That is why the Cliff Walk is such an important part of any visit to the mansions. It reinforces a natural perspective the billionaires seemingly lost.

Happy traveling!

Captions: 1. Newport’s Cliff Walk passes seascapes on one side, fabulous mansions on the other. 2. On the second half of the trail, the going gets uneven. 3.  The Breakers’ ocean façade presides on Ochre Point. 4. Nearly every inch of The Breakers is ornate. 5. The marble loggia draws in the sea breezes for natural air conditioning. Photography by Thomas Simonet.