With red brick and slate siding and all the finest trimmings, this house looks like a present wrapped under the Christmas tree! The Joseph Fletcher House is located at 19 Stimson Avenue in Providence, Rhode Island, and is an excellent example of a Queen Anne residence with the innovative use of siding types often found in the style. The residence was built in 1889 for textile manufacturer, Joseph Edward Fletcher (1866-1924), the son of wealthy, English-born manufacturer, Charles Fletcher. The Fletcher house and adjacent stable were designed by Stone, Carpenter & Willson, one of the most prestigious architectural firms in New England at this period. It is believed that the site was developed by Charles Fletcher, as a wedding gift to his 23-year-old son and daughter-in-law following their marriage. The home was recently sold, and the interiors are as stunning as the exterior!
The Byron Thomas Potter House is located at 8 Stimson Avenue in Providence, Rhode Island, and is one of the city’s few examples of the Beaux Arts architectural style in a single-family residence. The Beaux Arts style uses an Italian Renaissance form and materials (Roman bricks), classical Greek and Roman decorative elements like columns and balustrades, and a steep mansard roof punctuated by large dormers, to create a grand and imposing architectural statement. The house was designed by 1896 by local architect, Edward I. Nickerson, who was known for his use of traditional forms in an unconventional manner, with emphasis on ornament and differing materials; with this house being a great example of his work in his later years. The residence was built for newlyweds Helen Sheldon Potter and Byron Thomas Potter, a real estate and insurance broker. The residence is now occupied by the International House of Rhode Island, a non-profit that provides a “home away from home” for international students, scholars, professors, researchers, and their families by providing a venue for folks of different backgrounds, ethnicities, and life experiences to celebrate our similarities and differences and envision a world in which friendship and understanding beat anonymity, isolation, and ignorance. The world needs more of this.
C.1958 photo before demolition. Courtesy of Library of Congress.
Built in 1828, Dexter Asylum was a “poor farm,” an institution housing the indigent, elderly, and chronically unemployed, located in the East Side of Providence, Rhode Island. Poor farms were common before the introduction of Social Security and welfare benefits in the United States, considered a progressive method for dealing with poverty. Ebenezer Knight Dexter (1773-1824) was a wealthy mercantile trader in Providence, who in 1800, built Rose Farm, a gentleman’s farmhouse on what was then, the outskirts of Providence. Upon his death in 1824, he bequeathed to the town 40-acres of the farmland to the north for use as a poor farm or almshouse site. The building was completed by 1828 and was originally three stories, and later expanded with a mansard roof and dormers sometime later in the 19th century. Dexter also stipulated that a stone wall would surround the site, and parts of it remain to this day. As with many poor farms and almshouses of the period, residents worked farmland and cared for pigs and a herd of dairy cows; they lived in this large building, strictly segregated by sex. Residents were essentially inmates, indentured for periods of six to twelve months, and could not leave the property without a ticket of permission. In the interwar period, “inmate” population there declined and changing views on how to assist the poor caused the City to abandon the facility. After decades of legal troubles and stipulations of the Dexter will, in 1956, the plot was auctioned off, and Brown University purchased the site. The grounds are now used by some of the Brown University athletic facilities. The city set aside the money from the sale to create the Dexter Donation, which gives annual grants to assist the city’s poor, providing an enduring legacy of Dexter’s Asylum.
When Ebenezer Dexter built this country retreat in 1800, it stood at the eastern edge of settlement in Providence, Rhode Island. Several of the city’s wealthy residents maintained country seats on the then rural outskirts of the city, but Rose Farm is the only remaining gentleman’s farmhouse from the period in this part of the city, surviving over two centuries of development pressure and economic recessions. The house stands out amongst a neighborhood of mid-to-late 19th century residences, for its refined form and simple symmetry. Rose Farm is a wood-frame dwelling with brick end walls and exceptionally tall chimneys at the hipped roof, which once had two levels of a decorative balustrade. Ebenezer Knight Dexter (1773-1824), was a businessman and philanthropist, who left the bulk of this farmland to establish a home for the poor, Dexter Asylum, on land to the north. John Stimson bought the farmhouse and surrounding land in 1837 and the property directly surrounding the farmhouse was later subdivided with large residential lots, with the neighbrohood filling-in by the late 19th century.
Apartment buildings get a bad rap, largely because of the cheaply built monstrosities built after WWII through today; but apartment buildings can be dignified and fit within their surrounding context, it just takes good design. These are the Cushing Apartments at Thayer and Bowen streets in Providence’s College Hill neighborhood. The building was constructed in 1902 for owner, Stephen Cushing Harris, from plans by young architect Frederick Ellis Jackson (1879-1950), who would have been in his mid-20s when he designed it! While not an academic example of the Tudor or Colonial Revival styles, the building blends both in a unique U-shaped form. The building is supposedly wood-frame and was eventually purchased by Brown University in 1963. The college renovated the building in 2012 to serve as an upperclassman dormitory with LBB Architects and Gilbane Construction overseeing the project. The building adds a subtle density to the block without being overbearing with the courtyard design.
The Francis and Sarah Cranston House is located on Bowen Street in the College Hill section of Providence, Rhode Island. Built circa 1895 for Francis Augusta Cranston (1837-1909) and his wife, Sarah (Hill) Cranston, the house is one of the best residential examples of Colonial Revival architecture in the city. Francis was the son of Barzillai Cranston, a descendant of Gov. Samuel Cranston, who held office from 1698 to 1727, being elected to office 30 times; serving as governor longer than any other individual in the history of Rhode Island. Francis worked as cashier of the Old National Bank of Providence for over fifty years and built this residence to settle into retirement. The residence is unique for its high-sloping hipped roof with two layers of dormers, corner quoins, Palladian window, and Ionic portico. I could not locate the architect, but if anyone knows, I’d love to give them their deserved credit!
The Colonial era has had a grip on New England residential design since the 1700s, with each subsequent “revival” showcasing the character-defining features in bold new ways. With this house on College Hill in Providence, Rhode Island, the architect, Friedrich St. Florian, blended traditional Colonial Revival residential design with the flair and quirkiness that comes with the Post-Modern style, popular in the 1980s. The house is five bays wide at the facade with a central projecting bay at the entrance. Post-Modernism takes architectural precedence and turns it on its head, with quirky takes on features and larger proportions. The Edwards House exhibits decorative stone lintels, a Classically inspired entry with pilasters, and a very large cupola at the roof. What do you think of this house? I feel it works well for the neighborhood as it is contextual to the surrounding Colonial-era and Colonial Revival style residences while clearly being of the late 20th century.
I am on a Colonial Revival style kick lately, so bear with me on this recent span of posts on houses in the style! This estate house is an earlier example in Providence, built in 1892 for Stephen Olney Metcalf (1857-1950) a multi-millionaire who was in business in woolen textiles and insurance before diversifying his portfolio further serving as President of the Providence Journal and Evening Bulletin. To make an architectural statement, Mr. Metcalf called the renowned Boston firm of Andrews, Jacques and Rantoul to design his new residence. The oversized Colonial Revival house is an excellent example of how Revival architecture tend to be a more free interpretation of their prototypes, being larger and having exaggerated features and proportions. In his will, Stephen O. Metcalf bequeathed this residence to the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), an institution his mother helped found, and his daughter served as President. The mansion remains the RISD President’s House to this day.
One of the most stunning Italianate style homes in Providence is this stately beauty which is located on Prospect Street. The house was built in 1854 on land sold from Oscar to Henry A. Dike (Dyke), a shoe manufacturer, who erected this stately residence for his family, who only remained there until the early 1860s when it was sold. The home was built on one lot, facing a second house lot, and not the street like many other residences. The property changed hands many times during and soon after the American Civil War, until 1870, when it was purchased by Albert Harkness (1822-1907), a Brown University Classics professor. It was in Professor Harkness’ ownership that the southern house lot was landscaped from plans by Frederick Law Olmsted‘s firm in 1887. The house, which recently sold in 2022, is well-preserved from its massive brackets to the oversized belvedere at the roof!
Colonial Revival houses just exude New England charm! This house in Providence’s East Side/College Hill neighborhood was built at the turn of the 20th century in 1902 for Henry Samuel Sprague, a Providence grain dealer, for $15,000. Mr. Sprague clearly did well for himself financially as he could afford a house lot on one of the city’s most beloved streets, Prospect Street. The large mansion has many architectural details which stand out including contrasting brick and shingle on the first and second floors, a massive projecting portico covering a prominent entry, bold fluted pilasters at the center bay, and three pedimented dormers at the slate roof. Inside, this old house has some amazing woodwork and details too!
Buildings of New England 