National Register of Historic Places - Rhode Island Historical ...

DIPS }orm ‘0-900-. MII No 1024-00111
CII? E .p, l0-Ji-Il-I
United States Department of the Interior
National Park Service - For NI’S us, only
National Register of Historic Places
Inventory-Nomination Form -
Continuation shet 57
Item number 8
and Bluff Avenue, two cross streets Plympton and
street along the bay shore Bay Street . The map
dwellings, including one used as a hoarding house,
a school house built 1852 . - The houses were all
residents. Four decades after its beginning as a
was still a hotel resort, with no seasonal summer
received
- date entered
Larkin
shows six
-the Dick
owned by
v a c a tion
cottages
Page 4
connected to a
hotels; eight
ens House; and
the year - round
spot, Watch Hill
The first dwelling designed and- huilt specifically as a summer resi
dence was put up for Connecticut Governor James L. Howard of I-hartford, on
land west of the Watch Hill House. Some of the exis ti ng year-round houses
were subsequently-purchased for use as summer homes -such as the Pitch
House, bought by Mrs. 3. P. Harvey now partly destro yed hy fire, and
Albert W. Crandall’s house, occupied hy Governor Jul ius Catl in- -and a Few
seasonal cottages were built. - Extensive development however, was hampe red
by the lack of available building sites. Most land in the village was
held by the hotel owners, who were reluctant to sell lots to enable the
construction of houses that would block their sea vi stas . Immediately
northeast of the vil lage , a section of the former George Foster homestead
since sold out of the family and known as the Everett Farm, ran across
the neck from the hay to the ocean, blocking the natural expansion of the
village up the neck.
in 1886 three Cincinnati businessmen, Lyneas Norton, Jacob S. Burnet
and Walter St. John Jones, joined together to purchase the Everett Farm.
These gentlemen, commonly known as the Cincinnati Syndi ca-te , hired M.D.
Burke, a land- surveyor from their Ohio home town, to suhdivide the P v crc t t
estate into house lots. The plan that Burke drew included 101 lots rang i ng
from 4891 to 160,000 square feet, disposed along winding streets ar I’ an g e d
to harmonize with and capi talize upon the rolling terrain. In the t’ords
of a promotional text published by the syndicate:
This estate, which has so long retarded the growth of
Watch Hill,.. .has recently been purchased for the express
purpose of division into cottag e sites, of dimensions,
situation, and prices to suit a 11 tastes. Persons of
very moJrate means -and econonnni cal biah its may now ciii oy
the.. .ocean
tile n..realthy
air and scenery at Watch hill .1 in common w i th
line average lot- s ze ml- tile Nverett Farnn snmhd i ‘V I 5 1111 Va 5 a p pi iN i ni to I
35,000 square. feet, just under one acre. A number of purchase rs bought
adjoining
eight of
lots to ensure adequate space
the lots were sold in the first
for their r eq u i reIn ei t 5 Thi rty
six months after tine p Ia t t. I ng of
the farm, but construction followed slowly. About tlnirty-thre e houses were
erected on the Everett tract by 1895, not al 1 by the original purchasers
See Continuation Sheet P 58