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The Chanler at Cliff Walk
Newport, Rhode Island, United States · Independent · Grand Luxury
The Chanler at Cliff Walk occupies the 1873 villa John Winthrop Chanler, a New York congressman and Astor cousin by marriage, built at the head of Newport's Cliff Walk, Easton's Beach straight below. It reopened in 2003 as 20 rooms, each dressed to a different period. Forbes rates it Five-Star for 2026, Michelin has given it Two Keys, and Brad Kilgore cooks at Cara with that same Atlantic view.
- 20 rooms
- Opened 2003
- Neighborhood: Ochre Point
About The Chanler at Cliff Walk
- The Chanler holds both MICHELIN's Two Keys distinction and Forbes Travel Guide's Five-Star rating, a rare double for a twenty-room Newport house.
- Chef Brad Kilgore runs the kitchen at Cara, serving modern American food with the same Atlantic view Chanler and his Astor relations once surveyed.
- The Cliff Walk out front runs three miles past Bellevue Avenue's Gilded Age cottages, with the Vanderbilts' Breakers less than a mile up the path.
History
The mansion at the head of Newport's Cliff Walk was built in 1873 for John Winthrop Chanler, a New York congressman and member by marriage of the Astor family. Chanler, who served in the House of Representatives from New York, chose a site of spectacular advantage: a high bluff at the juncture of Memorial Boulevard and the Cliff Walk, with Easton's Beach directly below and the Atlantic spreading unobstructed to the horizon. The original structure, a Victorian Gothic edifice of wood and stone, was designed to take full advantage of the coastal elevation. The Chanler name was prominent in New York society of the Gilded Age; the family's connections through the Astor fortune gave the house a social significance that attracted Newport's seasonal elite during the decades when the town was the undisputed summer capital of American wealth. The property descended through generations and eventually fell out of active social use, the mansion standing through the twentieth century as a reminder of Newport's vanished aristocratic season.
It reopened as a twenty-room luxury hotel in 2003, each room individually designed and themed by a distinct historical period — rooms carry decorative schemes ranging from colonial American to Victorian, Louis XIV, and Elizabethan, furnishing each with antiques, rich fabrics, and period details that treat the building as a kind of inhabitable museum of interior style. The Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star designation confirmed a level of service and detail that the Chanler maintains as a point of pride: with just twenty rooms and a staff accustomed to operating at the scale of a private residence, guests receive attention that larger properties cannot provide. The hotel's restaurant, Cara, operates under the direction of chef Brad Kilgore, bringing modern American cuisine to a setting whose dining rooms look out over the same Atlantic that Chanler and his Astor relations surveyed a hundred and fifty years ago. The Cliff Walk below the property, one of Newport's great public amenities, gives guests immediate access to the full three-mile promenade past the Gilded Age cottages of Bellevue Avenue — the Vanderbilt Breakers less than a mile away — turning the hotel's setting into a front-row seat for Newport's architectural history.
The setting
Memorial Boulevard at the head of the Cliff Walk, opposite Easton's Beach.
Restaurants and bars
- Cara — Restaurant · Chef Brad Kilgore
Experiences
- Remy's Loose dining — A Gilded Age-style dining experience at the hotel's restaurant Remy's Loose, opened in 2025.
- Summer Wine Garden — The hotel's summer wine garden, which returned in 2024.
Amenities
- Cliff Walk access
- Beach club
- Spa services
- Ocean views
- Sauna
- Hot tub
- Fitness center
- Tennis
Awards
- AAA Four Diamond (2026)
- Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star (2026)
- MICHELIN Two Keys (2026)
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- Castle Hill Inn and Resort — Independent · High Luxury
- The Cliffside Inn — Lark Hotels · High Luxury
- The Vanderbilt — Auberge Resorts · High Luxury
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