An 1873 Gilded Age mansion at the head of the Cliff Walk. Twenty themed rooms, the Atlantic at your feet, and the Newport that the Astor set actually knew.
"The only hotel in Newport that sits directly on the Cliff Walk. An 1873 Chanler family mansion, twenty themed rooms, and the Atlantic doing the talking. If you want the Newport of John Singer Sargent paintings, this is the address."
The Chanler was built in 1873 as the summer residence of John Winthrop Chanler — a New York congressman and patriarch of one of America's most consequential Gilded Age families — and his wife Margaret Astor Ward, descended directly from the Astor and Ward dynasties that effectively built Newport's social season. The house occupies a position no later property could replicate: the very head of the Cliff Walk, where Memorial Boulevard meets the Atlantic, with the mansion district behind and the open ocean below. To stay at The Chanler is to occupy a piece of Newport that the rest of the town walks past every afternoon.
Today the property operates as a five-star Relais & Châteaux boutique — the only Relais property in Rhode Island and one of the few American members where the building itself is the headline. There are exactly twenty rooms, each individually themed and named after a period of European or American design history. Guests choose between English Tudor, Greek Revival, French Rococo, Renaissance, Colonial, Victorian, and Federal rooms, each conceived as a complete environment rather than a decorative gesture. The Tudor suite is half-timbered and oak-panelled. The Greek Revival is white columns, blue marble, and Aegean light. The French Rococo is gilt and silk and the closest thing in Newport to an actual Versailles bedroom.
Cara Restaurant — the Chanler's dining room — is run by chef Tony Maws, the James Beard Award-winning founder of Craigie on Main in Cambridge. Maws's arrival shifted the property from a hotel-with-a-restaurant into a destination dining address in its own right. The cuisine is precise New England — local seafood, Rhode Island farm produce, and game treated with the discipline of a serious kitchen — served in a dining room with floor-to-ceiling windows facing Easton's Beach and the Atlantic horizon. Reserve a window table at sunset; the room turns gold for forty minutes and the kitchen plates accordingly.
The Chanler's defining feature is geographic rather than architectural. The Cliff Walk — the 3.5-mile coastal path that traces the back lawns of every Bellevue Avenue mansion from the Breakers to Bailey's Beach — begins at the foot of the hotel's lawn. Guests step from the breakfast terrace directly onto the path. The walk to the Breakers takes about twenty minutes; to Rough Point, forty. No other Newport hotel offers this access. The lawn itself, terraced down toward the cliff edge, is where most Chanler proposals happen at golden hour, with the Atlantic providing the soundtrack and Easton's Bay framing the moment.
Scale is the philosophical decision the Chanler made decades ago and has never reconsidered. Twenty rooms means the staff knows every guest's name by the second morning, the front desk fields no anonymous traffic, and breakfast is served at your preferred time rather than during a window. There is no spa, no gym worth calling one, and no ballroom — those are not what this property is for. The Chanler is for couples who want a Newport stay that feels like an invitation to a private house party from 1895, with a Relais & Châteaux kitchen and a 153-year-old building doing exactly what it was built to do.
The Chanler is Newport's most romantically literate anniversary hotel. For couples returning to mark a milestone, the front desk will quietly arrange your previous room, remember the wine you ordered, and stage champagne on the lawn at sunset. The themed suites — particularly French Rococo or English Tudor — offer the kind of distinct, photographic backdrop that anniversaries deserve. Cara at sunset, the Cliff Walk at dawn, and a full Newport mansion district at the door. This is what an anniversary at sea looks like.
More proposals happen on the Chanler's terraced lawn than at any other Newport address — and the staff has it choreographed. The standard arrangement: golden-hour walk down to the cliff edge, photographer staged discreetly behind the hedge, champagne returned to the room afterward with the engagement turndown. Brief the concierge 72 hours ahead. The lawn is private, the Atlantic is loud enough to swallow nerves, and the moment after she says yes is best handled with Cara's tasting menu at a window table. Few hotels stage the question this well.
For domestic honeymoons that want a transatlantic feel without the flight, the Chanler is the answer. Three nights in the French Rococo or Greek Revival suite, mornings on the Cliff Walk before the day-trippers arrive, afternoons at Bailey's Beach or the mansions, and evenings at Cara. The hotel's intimate scale means honeymooners are never lost in a crowd, and the Relais & Châteaux service standard delivers the small attentions that distinguish a great honeymoon from a good one. New England's most cinematic post-wedding address.
Rates checked May 2026. Price may vary by date.
The Chanler at Cliff Walk has staged more milestone weekends than any other Newport address. Twenty themed rooms, the Atlantic at the door, and a Relais & Châteaux kitchen.
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