Built c. 1710 this amazing Georgian Colonial house would have originally been a smaller, central chimney structure built by Nathaniel Langley. Major remodeling to effect the Georgian style seen today was done by a subsequent owner of the property. That owner was likely John Brown (1694-1764) a wealthy merchant that may have gifted or sold this home to his daughter, Ann Brown and her new husband, Charles Handy. Handy was a merchant and operated a spermaceti factory just to its west. Later owner, David King and his heirs owned the house for much of the 19th century. The house is on its original site and was purchased by the Newport Restoration Foundation (NRF) in 1969 and restored in 1970-71.
Stephen Stedman Albro (1817-1895)was born in Newport, Rhode Island, the son of James and Rhoda Albro. After attending local schools, he entered into a mason’s trade, eventually starting his own contracting business. He split his time as a contractor and as a Deacon of a local Baptist Church. He was engaged in local politics, serving as a alderman for Newport and even was a director of the National Exchange Bank in Newport for some years. He built this home on Green Street after his marriage to his second wife, Emma, possibly designing and constructing the house himself. The Albro House is a stunning example of a late-Italianate style dwelling with later Queen Anne/Colonial Revival embellishments. This is a special house!
The Joseph Cottrell House on Spring Street in Newport is a handsome, two-story, Greek Revival style house with flushboard siding and a traditional pilastered recessed center entry. What really stands out about this home is the two-story rounded corner bay which is finished with columned porches (since enclosed) which were likely added in the second half of the 19th century. Cottrell worked as a ship-builder in Newport, likely constructing the house and later addition himself. Developers today would never!
James Cahoone (1727-1814) and Stephen Yates built this stunning double-house on Green Street in Newport around 1763. Both James and Stephen worked as painters in town, and built this house together, each living in one half (Cahoone must have paid a little more because his “half” was a little larger). The Georgian style double-house eventually suffered from neglect and like several other Colonial-era buildings in Newport, its future was uncertain. Luckily, the Newport Restoration Foundation stepped in and purchased the property in 1968, restoring the houses in 1974, complete with a paint color even Cahoone and Yates would love!
One of the finest commercial blocks in Newport is this building, the Theodore Helme Block, located on Spring Street, just behind Trinity Church. The block was built for Helme by 1875 and was possibly an early design by Dudley Newton, a local architect. The Second Empire style block has a slate roof with rare intact iron cresting and small dormers. The building was restored by Federico Santi & John Gacher, who operate The Drawing Room Antiques here.
This unique double-house on Mill Street is stopped me in my tracks when strolling around Newport. The two-family house was built around 1784 by Billings Coggeshall (1733-1810) and is unique architecturally as it is comprised of two houses, each with its own separate pedimented entry, into a single lengthy block. Both houses have interior chimneys and are just one-room deep! When urban renewal hit Newport in the second half of the 20th century, traffic patterns and revitalization of the waterfront were top of mind (not necessarily slum clearance and wholesale redevelopment of neighborhoods like in Boston). To bring traffic into the downtown shopping area, Memorial Boulevard was laid out by 1969, and the Newport Restoration Foundation was integral to saving this building from the wrecking ball, as it was in the path of the new road. As luck would have it, an area around Trinity Church was cleared to establish Queen Anne Square, a town common-like park in the center of town. To provide the quintessential “New England charm”, many historic buildings were relocated to line the square, including this house. When the Billings Coggeshall House was moved here, it replaced a gas station, and it was given an even longer side addition with breezeway, providing screened parking and a rear addition for offices. Here’s to preservation!
On the second floor of The Elms mansion in Newport, you will find two separate bedrooms for the owners Edward and Sarah Berwind, a husband and wife of high society. The larger of the two bedrooms was for Mrs. Berwind as you know what they say, “happy wife, happy life”. Mrs. Berwind’s bedroom has cream-colored woodwork covered with custom-woven celadon green damask with borders of coordinated green, gold, and cream material. She had an adjoining bathroom and her chambers had access to her husband’s chamber along with a shared fireplace.
Newport, Rhode Island was settled in 1639 from colonists, who took land from the Narragansett people, who had lived on the land for generations. Newport eventually grew to be the largest of the original settlements that later became the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Newport served as the seat of Rhode Island’s government until the current Rhode Island State House in Providence was completed in 1904. Newport was a major center of the slave trade in colonial and early America, active in the “triangle trade” in which slave-produced sugar and molasses from the Caribbean were carried to Rhode Island and distilled into rum that was then carried to West Africa and exchanged for captives. In all, about 60% of slave-trading voyages launched from North America – in some years more than 90% departed from the tiny state, many of which left from Newport. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, wealthy southern planters seeking to escape the heat began to build summer cottages. By the end of the 19th century, a large number of America’s elite would build summer “cottages” in the town, transforming much of it to the Gilded Age splendor we see today. Stay tuned for a sampling of Newport buildings.
Newport City Hall was completed in 1900 from Newport-based architect and builder John Dixon Johnston. The massive Beaux-Arts style building was constructed of granite block and capped with a mansard roof with iron cresting. Tragically, a fire destroyed much of the interior and the roof in 1925, leading to a re-imagining of City Hall. In the 1920s, Colonial design prevailed in New England, and architect William Cornell Appleton envisioned the building with more Colonial features. Palladian windows and a boxed-off fourth floor were added, along with a towering cupola.
Buildings of New England 