Castle Hill Inn, the 33-room oceanfront resort perched on 40 acres at the tip of Aquidneck Island in Newport, Rhode Island, reopened roughly three months after a fire tore through its roof and attic in February 2026. Guests and staff were evacuated safely that night, and the historic property has since brought its restaurants back online in time for summer, with its gardens, oyster program and fine-dining menu once again in full swing.
The recovery effort leaned on a small army of tradespeople. According to WCVB, about 50 subcontractors, artisans and tradespeople worked seven days a week to get the inn back open, a pace managing director Brian Young credited for the speed of the turnaround. Young also said firefighters from Newport and other departments extinguished the blaze within hours. The fire caused significant smoke, fire and water damage to the structure.
That mutual aid response was substantial. The two-alarm fire broke out around 9:30 p.m. on February 5, 2026, pulling in crews from Naval Station Newport, Middletown, Portsmouth, Jamestown, North Kingstown and Bristol, according to Ocean State Media, as firefighters battled heavy fire and smoke across the upper floors and attic void spaces. The Rhode Island State Fire Marshal's Office later determined the fire was accidental, caused by a wood-burning fireplace, as reported by What's Up Newp.
A Phased Return, Room by Room
Castle Hill Inn's comeback unfolded in stages rather than all at once. The property began welcoming guests again on March 5, opening its undamaged Beach Houses and Beach Cottages while using the Chalet as an interim operational hub, according to the same What's Up Newp report. The main Agassiz Mansion's ground floor followed with a May reopening, though upper-floor guest rooms in the mansion itself aren't expected back online until early 2027.
Before the doors reopened to the public, the inn held a gathering specifically to thank the people who got it there: first responders, contractors and employees. It's a notable gesture given that Newport Restaurant Group, which operates Castle Hill Inn under Newport Harbor Corporation, runs as a 100% employee-owned company, meaning staff members hold direct equity in the business, per Forbes.
Grounds and Kitchen Back in Full Production
With the restaurants reopened for summer, the inn's farm-to-table operation is running at full tilt again. Castle Hill Inn grows more than 30 kinds of vegetables, fruits and edible flowers on-site, serves more than 70,000 oysters a year, and turns out 18,000 lobster rolls over the summer season, per WCVB. Executive chef Jennifer Lewis oversees both room service and Aurelia, the property's fine-dining restaurant, which offers a six-course tasting menu.
Lewis told the station that the kitchen sources its lamb, beef, pork, seafood and produce locally, and chefs regularly pull ingredients straight from the property's own garden. Leita Lord, the inn's horticulture and sustainability manager, said some of those ingredients travel only meters up the hill before reaching the kitchen.
A Gilded Age Landmark With Hollywood Ties
Castle Hill Inn's roots run deep. The mansion was built in 1875 by Alexander Agassiz, a Harvard University marine biologist, as a summer residence, and it later served as an impromptu billet for U.S. Naval officers during World War II before its conversion into a hotel, according to Only In Your State. The Agassiz family had stopped summering on the peninsula after the 1938 hurricane.
The property's celebrity pedigree includes a 1956 stay by actress Grace Kelly while she filmed High Society; the secluded rocky cove where she once swam is still known locally as Grace Kelly Beach, according to A4 Architecture + Planning. Playwright Thornton Wilder also frequented the inn and reportedly drew inspiration from its turret room. In September 2024, Castle Hill Inn earned a Two Key designation in the MICHELIN Guide, one of only four hotels in Rhode Island — all in Newport — to receive MICHELIN Key honors.
Not Newport's First Major Hotel Fire
The Castle Hill blaze is the second serious hotel fire to hit Newport's hospitality sector in recent years. In May 2022, a four-alarm fire heavily damaged the 195-room Wayfinder Hotel, requiring roughly 90 firefighters from across Aquidneck Island and surrounding towns to bring under control, according to What's Up Newp. That fire was later attributed to discarded smoking material in a mulch bed, a markedly different cause than the fireplace blamed for the Castle Hill fire.
Castle Hill Inn also holds membership in Relais & Châteaux, an international association of luxury boutique hotels and restaurants known for strict hospitality and culinary standards, according to The Martin Luther King Junior Community Center. For a property with that kind of international standing, the quiet thank-you gathering for the crews who rebuilt it offers a glimpse of how deeply local the recovery effort actually was.
