The Elms, designed by architect Horace Trumbauer and completed in 1901, is modeled on a French chateau and set in formal sunken gardens that are among the finest examples of French landscape design in the United States. The exterior is neoclassical and relatively restrained by Newport standards; the interior, fitted out in 18th-century French decorative arts, has the feel of a particularly grand Parisian apartment.
The Preservation Society's "below stairs" tour of The Elms is uniquely worthwhile — it takes visitors through the service areas, the coal storage, the dumbwaiter systems, and the servants' bedrooms that kept the visible upper floors running. The contrast between the gilded reception rooms and the cramped staff quarters makes the economics of Gilded Age domesticity viscerally clear. The gardens, with their marble pavilions, sunken parterres, and formal hedges, are open without a house ticket and make a good stop on their own.