The Preservation Society of Newport County (Newport Mansions) has begun teasing out a new guest experience at The Elms that will offer a fresh way to connect with the remarkable Gilded Age mansion through engaging storytelling, multi-sensory elements and other thoughtfully integrated enhancements. (Newport Mansions)

The Elms, closed to the public since Aug. 10, will reopen later this fall with a new guest experience built around storytelling, multi-sensory elements and what the Preservation Society of Newport County describes as thoughtfully integrated enhancements.

The Preservation Society is developing the experience with Digital Kitchen, a creative studio chosen as its experience design partner in 2024 after a competitive process. People who want to be among the first inside can sign up with their email at newportmansions.org/theelms.

The Elms was built at the turn of the 20th century as the summer home of Edward Julius Berwind and his wife, Herminie, and modeled on an 18th-century French chateau. It was equipped with the latest technology of the Gilded Age and holds a collection of paintings, sculpture and tapestries, set among formal gardens, terraces, pavilions and fountains.

The Carriage House café on the grounds remains open daily from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., with last seating at 4, for Preservation Society members and anyone holding a Newport Mansions house tour ticket.

Ryan Belmore is the owner and publisher of What's Up Newp. He took over the publication in 2012 and has grown it into a three-time Rhode Island Monthly Best Local News Blog (2018, 2019, 2020). He was named LION Publishers Member of the Year in 2020 and received the Dominique Award from the Arts & Cultural Society of Newport County the same year. He has been awarded grants for investigative and community journalism, and continues to coach and mentor new local news publications nationwide. Ryan...