Tucked away behind Abbott Park, a small green in Downtown Providence, the Plantations Club has stood for 100 years as one of the city’s finest examples of Colonial Revival architecture and was long a vital women’s club organization. This Georgian Revival brick building was designed by the firm of Andrews, Jones, Briscoe & Whitmore, of Boston for the Providence Plantation Club, a women’s social organization founded in 1916. The club was a success, starting with about 150 members and it reached more than 1,300 members, just one year after its inception. As the only female architect of the society, Frances E. Henley got involved in promoting the Club in terms of its visuals and interior design of the building, working closely with the architects. Ms. Henley was the first woman to study architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design and the first woman to independently practice architecture in Rhode Island. When the club no longer needed such a building, Johnson & Wales University acquired the building in 1962, and since then, it has been known as Wales Hall, housing a variety of offices and services.
Buildings of New England 