A new face to the sea
South County Living Magazine, June, 2009 by Arline A. Fleming, Staff Writer
The former Narragansett Reading Room, now a real estate office, is being restored to its 19th century glory.
Between the storied Towers at one end of Ocean Road's sea wall and the arched stone watering trough at the other, little evidence of turn-of-the century Narragansett Pier remains.
The seaside town in 1900 as a destination for wealthy, prominent vacationers, from New York and Philadelphia, and rambling hotels and oversized cottages where they |
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spent the summer months lined this stretch of sea wall. Those structures are mostly gone, but one house dating from those summer resort days managed to survive the subsequent century of fires, bulldozers, hurricanes and urban renewal that swept through town.
Once known as Sea Lawn, this grande dame of a summer home has also been known as the Reading Room, the Wave Crest Tavern and Tea Room, and more recently, as the Lila Delman Real Estate office. Since last fall, the structure has undergone something of an architectural spa package with the idea of returning its gabled exterior to its youthful, 1875 self by summer.
The house, which was moved in 1899 to the lot just south of the Towers from Mathewson Street, sits atop what were the grass tennis courts to the Narragansett Casino, said John Hodnett, principal broker of the business that occupies much of the renovated first level.
The Casino was the center of social life for the summer colony in the late 1800s. It is unclear why the land ceased being used as tennis courts, but the house made the move to the southern corner of the former grassy expanse and has evolved at 41 Ocean Road ever since.
"From what I have read, they called it a men's club," Hodnett said of the two-story house with the mansard roof, gabled dormers and a tower that extends to a third level.
Vacationing turn-of-the century gents are said to have come there for out-of-town newspapers, and to perhaps smoke a cigar while checking up on the latest news from the cities they left behind during the warm summer months.
"It was the original Internet cafe," Hodnett said. It is also something else, said Melanie Delman, owner, president of the agency and second-born daughter of the late Lila Delman, creator of the business. "I call it a survivor," she said.
The house managed to remain standing through the massive 1900 fire that destroyed the Towers, a blaze that burned within footsteps of its front door, taking with it several major buildings.
But the exterior of this 1875 house had been altered over the generations, and the ongoing restoration, Hodnett concluded, "was long overdue." "It was just so not what I wanted to look like," added Delman. "It's been my dream to do these renovations."
After talking to various contractors, Delman said they chose Jamestown's Jeremy Sherer of Suburban Renewal as the general contractor. Wakefield's Leslie Architects handled the design end of the project, which included a great deal of historic investigation.
The goal here, said Nancy Leslie, is to return the exterior of the wood-framed building to its 1880s, late Italiante-Second Empire origins. She said they will replicate lost architectural detailing and reintroduce lost architectural features.
But Leslie called the project something of "a detective game" as few photos remain of the original structure, and the ones they have found are in black and white, so choosing paint has been a challenge.
Leslie said 44 feet of the front porch will be opened up, which will take away from the existing office space but will bring the oceanside portion of the house closer to its origins.
"We have pieced together information by enlarging old photos, pulling off layers of shingles during the renovation process and studying detailing of other better preserved Second Empire structures in the Southern Rhode Island area," she noted.
Paint color was selected with the help of a colorist, with the body of the house being in the yellow family, with accent shades of cream, blue and salmon, said Geer Messinger, director of business management at Lila Delman Real Estate.
She said the colors will be "tweaked as necessary," and Delman said the colors they chose would complement the ocean and stonework of the nearby Towers.
Construction started in the fall, and Hodnett said he expects the work to conclude by summer. The budget just for the exterior restoration is in the "high six digits," he said, so interior work will wait for the time being.
Hodnett pointed out one benefit of bringing the property back to its original shiny self.
"I'm a big believer in historic restoration," he said, reasoning that nicely kept properties make the town appealing to visitors and tourists. "And they'll want to come back."
South County Living, June 2009
by Arline A. Fleming, Staff Writer
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