Newport waterfront chateau sells for nearly $8m

NEWPORT, R.I. -- The Seaweed estate along Newport's Cliff Walk has sold for $7.75 million, the biggest sale of residential property in Rhode Island this year.

Gustave White Sotheby's International Realty announced the sale yesterday. The estate was sold by the family of the late Rita Dolan Sellar, grandmother of the wife of US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. The firm did not say who purchased the property.

The waterfront chateau has more than a dozen bedrooms and was designed by Horace Trumbauer, who is better known for designing the famed Newport mansion and landmark The Elms.

The sale did not include a detached two-bedroom cottage.

Newport is dotted with mansions and estates built by wealthy Gilded Age industrialists. (AP)