Since 1978, it has occupied its present quarters on Coasters Harbor Island in Narragansett Bay.

This building, now called Founders Hall, was originally built in 1819 as the Newport Poor Asylum.

The city of Newport and the state of Rhode Island donated this property to the Navy for use as the Naval War College.

The college's first president, Rear Admiral Stephen B. Luce, formally dedicated the building to the Navy's use.

The building became famous in the years 1886–1889, when the college's second president, Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, first gave his lectures in this building that formed the basis for his famous book The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 (1890).