This charming Colonial house is located at 51 Landing Road, overlooking the banks of the Jones River in Kingston, Massachusetts. The house is thought to date to 1760, and by 1800, was likely owned by Stephen Drew a prominent local shipbuilder from a family of shipbuilders who operated a shipyard near the property. In 1810, the property was owned by Joseph Holmes (1772-1863), who also would build a wharf and dock on the riverfront of the property. The property remained in the Holmes Family when it was inherited by Edward Holmes, who worked in shipbuilding until the decay of the industry. The house is a great example of a 18th century residence with a 4×2 bay two-story form, clad with wood clapboards
and shingles with a large brick chimney at the roof. In 2018, Jones River Landing, a non-profit, purchased the house and ‘seek to provide seasonal lodging and accommodations for visiting students, interns, scientists and advocates who are studying and working in environmental programs in our region’. While there were plans were to restore the house, the landscaping and peeling siding appear to show some deferred maintenance.
Buildings of New England 
Hi I’m the caretaker of the Drew House as well as the ecology program director for JRWA. We have been working on getting quotes for painting the house, although it is currently out of our budget. We will probably try for CPC funds at the next town meeting. We’re a very small nonprofit and when we bought the house it had been well lived in. Ultimately we have fundraised and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the restoration (including a substantial amount restoring that chimney to its historic appearance). Shortly after purchase we also discovered a termite infestation and repairing that damage is the current focus of our funds. As to the lawn, we’re organizationally not a big fan of unproductive turf grass lawns so we tend to leave it a bit more overgrown but you did catch the photo on a pretty bad day. I do have orders to leave things like milkweed alone but it frequently trimmed else wise and almost all that sumac in the lower right of the photo has been dug up to create a patio with pavers (which is a work in progress).
Also as an update on the student housing front, presuming that was your jeep in the Jones River Landing parking lot while our director was hosting some friends from the Caribbean a couple of weeks back, the Drew House had just finished hosting four students and a professor from Wellesley College who are studying the Northern migration of the blue crab and we were preparing to move in a long term resident affiliated with an MIT SeaGrant aquaculture education program.
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Thank you for all of this and the immense work undertaken already to preserve this significant piece of history. Let me know if there is anything I can do to provide outreach and visibility for your organization.
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