Architecture

Channing Memorial Church // 1880

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The Channing Memorial Church of Newport, Rhode Island was named in the memory of William Ellery Channing (1780-1842), an ardent abolitionist and founder of the Unitarian faith in America. In 1835, ten men formed the first Unitarian Society in Newport in October 1835 and met in the home of Channing’s grandfather, William Ellery, one of the 56 signers of the United States Declaration of Independence. In 1879, the congregation’s minister, Rev. M. K. Schermerhorn, conceived the idea of a memorial to William Emery Channing, whose centenary would be the following year. He decided upon the ambitious project of a new church building and planning began immediately. On Rev. Channing’s 100th birthday, the cornerstone laying ceremony occurred in 1880. The Victorian Gothic stone church designed by Elbridge Boyden took a year to be completed and was was built from granite, cut in Lyme, Connecticut. Inside, two stained glass windows, the first ecclesiastical commission of John LaFarge, flood the interior spaces with warm colored light. The church looks much as it did when completed almost 150 years ago, thanks to an active congregation preserving this great landmark.

Castoff-Swinburne House // c.1840

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This stunning house located in Newport, Rhode Island, was constructed in the Greek Revival style circa 1840 for Henry Castoff (1803‐1879). His house was one of several dwellings built in the Greek Revival style at that time in the area surrounding Touro Park. Henry was a merchant who dealt in goods from the Indies. In 1868, Henry sold this house at 115 Pelham Street to Robert P. Berry, a local dentist and inventor. Dr. Berry’s heirs sold the property in 1890 to William J. Swinburne (1822‐1897) a former soldier, coal merchant, and Mayor of Newport (1855‐1856). After Swinburne’s death in 1897, the home passed by will to his daughter Elizabeth, who never married. Elizabeth resided in the house until her death in 1918. Under the terms of her will, the home was deeded to the Newport Civic League, who established the Swinburne School there, a school for women for the study of household arts and domestic sciences. The school opened in the 1920s. The Swinburne School operated until 2002, when it was dissolved by the Newport Civic League. The contents of the building were sold at public auction and the school records were deeded to the Newport Historical Society. The building itself was purchased by a Brian O’Neill, who restored it to a single‐family dwelling.

Butler House // 1865

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A true Italian Villa can be found in the dense center of Newport, Rhode Island. This is the Butler House, built in 1865 for physician Samuel Butler (1816-1881) and his wife, Emeline. Dr. Butler was born in Maine and was educated at Harvard before moving to Newport to become a member of high-society there. Besides working as a physician, Samuel Butler served on the Newport School Committee and as a director of the Redwood Library. His house was originally built in 1865 (as the right half) in a late-Greek Revival style as a side-hall house with flushboard siding and pilasters between the bays. As Newport continued to grow in wealth as a summer destination, Dr. Butler modernized his home in 1876, adding the oversized corner tower with round arched windows and bracketed cornice. The two aesthetically opposing styles somehow work well together in this eclectic home, which today, is further enhanced by a color palette to accentuate the two sections.

Littlefield-Van Zandt House // 1836

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In the late 1830s, Captain Augustus Littlefield (1803-1878) purchased a house lot on Pelham Street in Newport, Rhode Island and commissioned housewright John Ladd to design and build his new residence. Littlefield reportedly asked his Ladd to design an “authentic copy of an Italian Villa” he had seen during a trip in southern Italy. The result is a more traditional Greek Revival, temple-front house with a portico supported by four monumental columns with capitals that combine Corinthian and Egyptian lotus motifs. The minimal Italian Villa detail can be seen in the bracketed cornice and in the pediment. Built around 1836, the house remained in Littlefield’s possession until his death in 1878. The property was purchased by Charles C. Van Zandt, attorney and later the 34th Governor of Rhode Island. Gov. Van Zandt died in 1894 and was interred at Island Cemetery in Newport. The Littlefield-Van Zandt House remains a significant early, high-style Greek Revival house in the state and one with a great state of preservation.

Old Swedish Lutheran Church, Newport // 1896

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By the end of the 19th century, the summer colony of Newport, Rhode Island continued to see the erection of large summer cottages which required large staffs to maintain them. Scandinavian girls were preferred by the wealthy residents for maids and drivers, and beginning in the 1870s; they joined other ethnic groups, such as the Irish in establishing their own communities in the coastal city. In 1892, organized under the New York Conference of the Augustana Synod, a Lutheran Church for Swedish-speaking residents was established. A small lot on Corne Street was purchased and work began on this small wood-framed church. Completed in 1896, the church was designed by by architect James W. Smith in the Gothic Revival style. It has a central bell tower and a spire and the interior of the church originally had an hourglass pulpit. Gold and white decorations surrounded an oil painting of the risen and ascending Christ. In the 1950s, the congregation purchased land on Broadway in the north end of Newport and built St. Peter’s Lutheran Church. The Corne Street church was sold and is now a private residence.

Cornè House // 1822

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What does this house and the tomato have in common? Keep reading to find out!

Michele Felice Cornè (1752-1845) grew up in Naples Italy and became disillusioned with the Napoleonic Wars. After the French occupation of Naples in 1799, he fled and was brought to the United States on the ship Mount Vernon, commanded by Elias Hasket Derby Jr., and settled in Salem, Massachusetts. Cornè moved to Boston in 1807 and lived and worked there until 1822 when he moved to Newport, Rhode Island, purchasing a property containing a barn. Cornè either had the barn renovated into this 1822 house or built the Federal period house from its timbers. Here, Cornè would paint many maritime scenes as murals in homes and businesses. However, his true contribution to his adopted country was convincing his neighbors to eat the tomato. While in Newport, it is reputed that Cornè introduced the tomato into the American diet. In early 19th century New England tomatoes were thought to be deadly poison. Cornè was accustomed to eating tomatoes in his native land and would regularly eat them without ill effect and, thus, allayed the fears of the residents of his adopted country. Today, the popularity of the tomato in American cuisine can be credited (in part) to Cornè and his love for the tomato.

Old Brant Point Lighthouse // 1856

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Located nearby the present Brant Point Lighthouse on Nantucket, the old lighthouse remains as a significant piece of island history preserved. In the 1740s, Nantucket’s whaling industry was growing fast, so at a town meeting in 1746, it was determined that a lighthouse at Brant Point was to be built, to mark the point around which all vessels passed as they entered the island’s inner harbor. On or near this site, nine lighthouses stood, guiding ships into and out of the harbor. This brick tower and attached keeper’s house were constructed in 1856. The tower itself was brick, topped by sandstone, which supported the lantern. The cast-iron lantern had twelve windows. A circular iron staircase led to the lantern, situated forty-seven feet above the ground. By the 1850s, Nantucket faced a sudden decline after the invention of kerosene, cut the need for whale oil and a growing sandbar blocked the harbor. The shifting sands would eventually require a new lighthouse built nearby, the present 1901 wooden lighthouse. The 1856 tower was retained ever since and is an important historical artifact for Nantucket’s maritime history.

Brant Point Lighthouse // 1901

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The Brant Point Lighthouse located on Nantucket Island was first established in 1746 to guide ships to the main harbor. At a town meeting at Nantucket on January 24, 1746, the sea captains of the island spoke out for a lighthouse and the sum of 200 pounds was voted, the wood 1746 lighthouse tower burned in 1758. It was replaced eight more times until 1901, when the present lighthouse was erected. While small, the lighthouse oozes charm and remains active and automated since 1965.

Rotch Counting House // c.1775

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Members of the Rotch family dominated Nantucket business and politics across three generations. The rise of this family was linked to the rise of the island as a whaling center. The well-connected family owned two of the three ships involved in the Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773. According to the Nantucket Historical Association, this warehouse and counting house building was in fact, built in 1775, not 1772, as erroneously stated on the wood plaque mounted on the outside of the building, for William Rotch, one of the pre-eminent figures in Nantucket’s whaling industry. The handsome brick building served as the Rotch Counting House. William Rotch subsequently moved his business to New Bedford. In 1861, the building was purchased by a group of former whaling masters who formed the organization known as the Pacific Club, and the building has been known by its eponymous name and is still owned by the members of the Pacific Club, who are invited into membership on a referral basis and are responsible for its maintenance.

Sylvia Store // 1879

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This charming commercial store was built in 1879 as one of five similar commercial buildings constructed on Nantucket as investment properties by Robert McCleave (1809-1878), a retired whaling captain. Located on Orange Street, this store was long occupied as a neighborhood grocery store, before the days of supermarkets with seas of parking. Antoine Sylvia Jr. (1835-1906), an Azorian-born merchant on the island purchased the property 1879 from McCleave and operated a grocery store at this location until his death in 1906. His wife, Elizabeth C. “Lizzie” Sylvia (1850-1929), retained the property and operated a shop where she sold wallpaper. In 2015-16, the façade was restored with the installation of a salvaged façade of nearly identical detail and dimensions built at 106 Main Street in 1869 also by McCleave. This façade was salvaged for re-installation here when that building was demolished in 2001. The Sylvia Store was given a preservation easement after the restoration, preserving it for another 150+ years to come!