The Breakers mansion: Row over 'America's Downton Abbey' as Vanderbilt family accuses preservation trust of betrayal

Jewel of America's Gilded Age was sold to preservation society in the 1970s

For 100 years, The Breakers mansion was home to the Vanderbilt family (Rex)

Who knows what sounds of gaiety and laughter may once have bounced off the walls of The Breakers mansion?

More than 100 years ago it was home to Vanderbilts, one of the US’s most celebrated industrial families, and the property in Newport, Rhode Island, oozed with the opulence and splendour of America’s so-called Gilded Age.

But today, the property sometimes referred to as America’s Downton Abbey, echoes with bad feeling and disagreement amid a row between the mansion’s original owners and the trust that bought it in the 1970s.

President John F Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy attended an Americas Cup dinner at The Breakers in 1962 (Rex)

The Associated Press reported that 21 members of the Vanderbilt family have written to the preservation group, claiming the management is no longer fulfilling its commitment to the public.

The letter says the group is exploiting the property and is “no longer a trustworthy steward of its flagship property”.

The objections appear to focus on a plan to build a visitors’ centre on the grounds of property, which the family members say would undermine the integrity and looks of the mansion. They want any such centre placed across the road, even though local officials have granted planning permission for it to be established on the grounds.

“It has betrayed its nonprofit mission to preserve historic Newport,” says the letter, whose signatories include the designer and artist Gloria Vanderbilt, 91, the mother of CNN anchor Anderson Cooper.

Gloria Vanderbilt, pictured in 2007, is among those who have signed the letter (Getty)

The 70-room mansion is a National Historic Landmark and many consider it one of the most significant properties in the city. Every year, around 400,000 people visit the mansion that President John F Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy dined at in 1962.

In a statement sent to The Independent, Andrea Carneiro, a spokeswoman for the Preservation Society of Newport, said the letter from the Vanderbilt family members was “rife with inaccuracies”.

She said the planned visitor centre would not damage the inherent value of the property and that the trust had been repeatedly praised over the years for its management of the mansion. The property was bought in 1972 at a “premium price”, she added.

“Since then the society has spent more than $20m preserving, restoring and maintaining the building. That expenditure continues today at a rate of about $1.5m per year,” she said.

“The society’s mission is to protect, preserve and present The Breakers and its other historic houses.”