The nearly 44,000-square-foot home asking $28.5 million is among the largest of these estates still in private hands.

Newport’s mansions are more than relics of opulence—they are living chronicles of ambition, technological innovation, and changing social tides in Gilded Age America. Each estate bears the hallmark of ...

NEWPORT, R.I.—I first saw Seaview Terrace from behind. With wind from the ocean at my back, I bypassed the main entrance and instead stepped through an opening in a nondescript chain link fence that ...