newport preservation

Brattle-Thurston House // c.1749

Buildings of New England2 Comments

This early Colonial house with unique, rusticated wood coursing carved, treated, and painted to resemble ashlar stone, can be found on Prospect Hill Street in Newport, Rhode Island. This is the Brattle-Thurston House, a circa 1749 Georgian residence of an appropriate gray color, yet when I stopped by in early 2024, had peeling paint. The house was originally part of the Latham Thurston estate, and was later rented or purchased by Robert Brattle (Brattell), who lived here with his wife, children, and an enslaved person according to the 1790 census. The home would later be owned by William Thurston, a hatter and dyer, who likely inherited the residence from his ancestor. Beyond the unique rusticated wood siding, the design features splayed lintels, the main entrance on the side elevation and a later entrance facing the street with segmental pediment above.

Newport Old Fire Station Hose No. 8 // 1887

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

One of the charming converted old fire stations of Newport, Rhode Island, can be found tucked away on Prospect Hill Street. This is Hose No. 8 Fire Station, built in 1887 by the City of Newport as a neighborhood station to battle fires in the dense network of streets and homes Downtown. The design blends Romanesque Revival and Victorian Gothic elements into a compact, two-story brick building. The station was closed in 1912 as the structure no-longer was compatible with larger fire apparatus and gasoline-powered trucks. The building would suffer from neglect and was crumbling, before being reconstructed, brick-by-brick, and restored by Hacin Architects of Boston as a private residence. The structure is essentially new on the interior but provides a significant preserved exterior that was long part of the eclectic streetscape of Prospect Hill Street.

Sunnyside // 1886

Buildings of New England1 Comment
Photo from recent real estate listing

During the height of the Shingle and Queen Anne styles’ popularity, architect Stanford White of McKim, Mead & White completed plans for one of the earliest Colonial Revival style residences, “Sunnyside” in Newport, Rhode Island. The residence was built in 1886 for “Commodore” William Edgar (1810-1887) and his wife, Eliza Lucille Rhinelander (1832-1916). William was a co-founder of the New York Yacht Club in 1844 and heir to a New York fortune. Eliza was an aunt of Edith Wharton and a grand-daughter of William Rhinelander, co-founder of the Rhinelander Sugar Refinery. The property remained in the Edgar Family as Lucille Rhinelander Edgar (1858-1948), an unmarried daughter of the couple, would live here year-round with servants. The house is built of buff-Roman-brick with a large central block flanked by L-plan wings under a hipped roof punctuated by massive chimneys. Of special note on the facade are the rounded bays, entry portico with Palladian window above, and side porch.

Boxcroft // 1883

Buildings of New England4 Comments

“Boxcroft” (also known as “Whileaway”) is a historic Shingle style summer “cottage” on Red Cross Avenue in Newport, Rhode Island. While it is surrounded by vegetation and tucked away, not facing the road, the house is a landmark example of the architecture style and very significant. The house was completed in 1883 from plans by the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White a white shoe firm who designed many summer cottages in Newport for social elite. The original owner was Samuel Colman (1832-1920), a well-known landscape artist, the first President of the American Water Color Society, a connoisseur of Oriental art and an interior designer in business with Louis Comfort Tiffany specializing in fabrics and wallpaper. Colman lived here with his first wife, Ann Lawrence Dunham until her death in 1902. The property was later owned by Mary Appleton, an unmarried daughter of publisher William Henry Appleton. She would sell Boxcroft to lawyer and socialite J. Coleman Drayton, years following his bitter (and very public) divorce from Charlotte Augusta Astor, a member of the prominent New York Astor family, following a cheating scandal by Charlotte. Mr. Drayton died in Newport in 1934. Boxcroft remains an architecturally and historically significant piece of Newport’s Gilded Age.

Mary Walcott Almon Cottage // 1883

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

Andrew Belcher Almon was born in Nova Scotia in 1824. He would enroll at Harvard College and graduate with a law degree before moving to Salem, Massachusetts, marrying Mary Walcott Baker, the daughter of Samuel Baker and Martha Pickman Wolcott. The couple first lived in Cambridge before relocating to Salem to live Mary’s widowed aunt, the late wife of Ezekiel Hersey Derby. After her aunt died, Mary and Andrew moved back to Cambridge until they built this fine Colonial Revival style mansion on Red Cross Avenue in Newport. No architect is attributed to the house, but due to it being an early Colonial Revival style house for the period, it can be inferred that it was a Boston/Salem-area architect. Does anyone know more?

LaFarge Cottage // c.1845

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

Even the less ornate and grand summer cottages of Newport can have interesting histories! This c.1845 Greek Revival cottage sits on Sunnyside Place and is best-known as the summer home of nationally significant painter, muralist, and stained-glass master John LaFarge (1835-1910), active in the lively late 19th-early 20th-century Newport art scene. John LaFarge’s wife, Margaret Mason Perry LaFarge (1839-1925), was the granddaughter of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, and was a native of Newport, seemingly providing the connection between her husband and lucrative stained glass commissions for many Newport and New York buildings. LaFarge is arguably best known for his innovative, opalescent stained glass windows, which was later stolen and adapted by Louis Comfort Tiffany. The LaFarge Cottage was possibly moved to this site and renovated, adding the glazed entry.

Tudor Lodge // c.1850

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

A rambling Gothic Revival style house in the mode of the picturesque Gothic estates in England, can be found tucked away in Newport, Rhode Island. This is Tudor Lodge, a stuccoed summer “cottage” notable for its stucco siding, moulding over all the windows, broad crenellated parapets, and a hip-roof porte-cochère in front of the principal entrance. The house was supposedly originally built as a summer residence for Nicholas Redwood Easton around 1850. After his death, the property was purchased by members of the Gibbs (Gibbes) Family, who owned much of the land in this part of town, giving nearby Gibbs Avenue its name. The property was purchased around 1900 by William Rogers Morgan, a New York City banker, who greatly remodeled and named the estate, Tudor Lodge, giving the house its present appearance. The estate was converted to four condominium units in 1980.

Bay Crest Cottage // c.1850

Buildings of New England2 Comments

Located across from the Winthrop-Eckley Double House on Corne Street, this gorgeous Italianate style summer cottage is a perfect blending of stature and whimsy. The house was built around 1850 and owned by Charles B. Peckham. Built in the Italianate style, the symmetrical house stands three-stories with covered side entrances divided by a projecting two-story bay. The house exhibits broad, overhanging eaves and paired and ganged round arched windows. The property was known as “Bay Crest” and remains one of the unsung landmarks of the 1850s in Newport.

Winthrop-Eckley Double House // c.1855

Buildings of New England1 Comment

Newport has no shortage of amazing architecture. From the grand Gilded Age mansions along the coast to the pre-Revolutionary Colonial houses, there are always new buildings to stumble upon and learn about. This charming stone double-house on Corne Street was built in the mid-19th century and had two owners by the 1870s, John Winthrop (1809-1886) and Julia Ann Eckley (1800-1874), a widow, who owned the smaller side. The stone cottage sits atop a raised basement with bold stone quoins at the corners. Dormers with delicate wood trim are at the roofline with the detail reflected in the porch on the Winthrop half. This double-house is one of the many “hidden” treasures in Newport’s warren of narrow streets.

John Banister House // 1751

Buildings of New England1 Comment

This deep, gambrel-roofed house is among my favorites in Newport. The house was built in 1751 for John Banister (1707-1767), a Boston-born merchant who moved to Newport in 1736, marrying Hermoine Pelham (1718-1765), a granddaughter of Gov. Benedict Arnold, that next year. Banister quickly established himself as a leading Newport merchant, trading with England, the West Indies, engaging in privateering and the slave trade. In 1752, he held one of the last public slave auctions in Rhode Island at his store, describing them in advertisements as “the finest cargo of slaves ever brought into New England”. The couple also built a country estate in Middletown, Rhode Island. John and Hermione had two sons, John and Thomas, who grew up in this home. John inherited the house after his father’s death in 1767, but the two brothers would soon find themselves on opposite sides of the battle for independence. Thomas was a loyalist, and even enlisted in the British army during the occupation of Newport, while John supported American independence. In retaliation for his patriot views, the occupying British forces seized this house, along with John’s farm in nearby Middletown. The house became the headquarters of General Richard Prescott during the occupation, although John later reclaimed his property following the British evacuation of Newport in 1779. The house has a later Federal entry, but otherwise is one of the best-preserved Colonial homes in Newport. It is a single-family home.