What a feeling of splendor, walking in to Marble House as an invited guest for the Preservation Society of Newport County’s 60th anniversary ball.

After a quiet cruise down Bellevue Avenue, having passed by classic yachts in the harbor and the crowds in town for the annual Jazz Festival, guests pulled their cars up to the grand and imposing doorstep of the mansion built by Richard Morris Hunt for William and Alva Vanderbilt.

Time inside was brief, because the party on Saturday was outside, on the grand terraces and even grander lawn that seemed to stretch to infinity. Dancing lions and 480 red-silk lanterns introduced the theme: “Dynasties and Dragons,” a nod to the mansion’s Chinese Tea House and the Chinese-themed party that Alva Vanderbilt threw for her daughter, the Duchess of Marlborough, in 1914.

An Asian theme could have been risky – haven’t Americans had their fill of the tacky red napkins and paper lanterns of Chinese restaurants? Taste prevailed under the guidance of one of the ball’s chairwomen, the designer Cynthia Gibson. Her decoration included exotic statuary and kites under a huge tent that glowed red. Tents within the tent, named after the Qing, Tang, Ming, and Song dynasties, provided private quarters for bigwigs.

Of Ms. Gibson’s effort, the chairman of the society’s board, Pierre du Pont Irving, said: “I’m absolutely flabbergasted. This is the best I’ve ever seen. This party will stand up to any in the world.”

The attire of the 580 guests turned many heads: from the green dragon costume hiding the venture capitalist Peter Kiernan, to the exquisite silver headdress worn by Sally Phelps. One of the great things about costumes is the stories that come with them. Mr. Kiernan’s wife, Eaddo, explained that her husband was in the dragon suit because he’d lost a bet. Jean DiBona first spotted her headdress in the window of a Chinese restaurant in Southampton, and her son went in and convinced the owner to sell it. Michele Fisher’s parasol came to Newport from China 200 years ago, on her husband’s family’s clipper ship.

A member of the prominent Newport family the Slocums, Marie-Louise Kirchner, wore a hairpiece that was worn to the 1914 party.

Only one party in New York comes close to the style seen at this ball: the preview benefit the Asia Society holds for the International Asian Art Fair, a party at which most of the guests are serious collectors and dealers of Asian art.

At the Newport dinner tables, those who dressed in tuxedos and gowns found Chinese accessories: chopsticks, which went into many updos, and red fans, on which the menu was printed.

The upscale Chinese food by Russell Morin’s Fine Catering was consistent with the theme: a salad of grilled pineapple and crispy duck; an entree of beef, snapper, and bok choy, and a chocolate bowl of fruit. Only the dance music – safe standards from the Bob Hardwick Orchestra – lacked an Asian touch. Yet the crowd filled the dance floor.

The who’s who of Newport – both the new arrivals and the ones rooted there for generations – were present to celebrate the national treasures maintained by the society. These included helicopter pilot and City Harvest patron Topsy Taylor, and Susan and Theodore Stautberg. (Mrs. Stautberg helped raise $3.5 million for the restoration of the Elms, built by her great uncle, Edward Julius Berwind.) Among the event’s chairwomen were Ruth Buchanan, an heir to the Dow Chemical Company fortune who lives next door to Marble House, in Beaulieu, and Kim Herrlinger, whose granddaughters Talia, 9, and Lily, 5, also attended, just one example of the event’s multigenerational character.

Also present were Washingtonians William and Ann Nitze and Nina Straight (a member of the Auchincloss family and a bridesmaid at Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s marriage to President Kennedy), and Texan Martha Hyder, a patron of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.

Ms. Hyder, at an auction the night before the ball, donated a week’s stay at her restored 18th-century home at San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, which sold for $12,000.The cocktail party for 100 at Marble House, featuring Alex Donner’s orchestra, also sold for $12,000.

The ball, along with the other events over the weekend, netted $300,000. Major private fund-raising is ahead. The society plans to spend $100 million over the next 30 years “to maintain just the envelope of the buildings,” the society’s chief executive, Trudy Coxe, said. That amount will pay for 1400 projects at 10 mansions. Next year’s benefit is a Coaching Weekend, when antique carriages from all over the country will be displayed. The year after, the ball will salute the Tall Ships in Newport’s harbor.