The Preservation Society of Newport County is offering new virtual tours of its historic houses and recent exhibitions as a free activity for people to enjoy while the house museums are closed.

Visitors to the Preservation Society’s website, NewportMansions.org, now can take self-guided 3-D tours through The Elms, Marble House, Isaac Bell House and Hunter House. They can also virtually experience two previous exhibitions at Rosecliff: “John James Audubon: Obsession Untamed” and “Tiffany Glass: Painting With Color and Light.”

“We have had a phenomenal reaction to this,” society CEO and executive director Trudy Coxe said. “Everybody has been through a Newport Mansion, but it gives you the opportunity, on a room-by-room basis, to zoom in on an object you might not have noticed.”

Preservation Society research fellow Sébastien Dutton is working to complete more of these virtual tours, and they will be posted as they are finished. This work is being supervised by Leslie Jones, director of museum affairs and chief curator.

“This technology allows us to digitize the interiors of all our historic properties, in an effort not only to bring these spaces and their content to the public, but also as a matter of our core preservation principles,” Jones said. “It allows for us to not only visually account for the interiors and their aesthetics and the placement of objects, but it also allows us to have accurate measurements of every floor space, every ceiling height, down to the millimeter.”

The Preservation Society of Newport County, celebrating its 75th anniversary in 2020, is a nonprofit organization accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. It is dedicated to preserving and interpreting the area's historic architecture, landscapes, decorative arts and social history. Its 11 historic properties – seven of them National Historic Landmarks – span more than 250 years of American architectural and social development.

For more information, visit NewportMansions.org.