Watts
Sherman House
William
Watts Sherman House is a notable house designed by American architect H. H.
Richardson, the house was built between 1875-1876 after the Queen Anne designs
of Richard Norman Shaw. The building is located in Plat 36, Lot 96 at 2 Shepard
Avenue, Newport, Rhode Island, and is now owned by Salve Regina University
(John and Lawrence, 1986). The house is generally known as one of Richardson's
masterpieces, and it serve as a prototype for what later became known as the
Shingle Style in American architecture. The building is a large
asymmetrically-massed L-shaped two-and-one-half story stone and frame structure
with a tall main gable roof and a massive subsidiary front gable. The complex
house is about 60 feet wide and 36 feet deep, with- an ell at the southeast
corner extending about 12 feet further to the rear. The walls are of pink
granite random ashlar with rather orange sandstone trim. Casement windows are
grouped in this story to form window-walls. The upper stories. are of frame construction;
upper walls are covered with warm brown shingles cut in various decorative
shapes and inset with half-timber and stucco panels painted red and warm beige
colors. The very tall, broad, and steeply itched gable roof with one small
dormer extends about two-thirds the length of the house and is then stepped
down for the remaining distance. (John and Albert, 1961)
A
large square fluted red-brick chimney stack rises from top of the roof and a
second very tall chimney, rebuilt since 1879, is located on the west front
elevation near the southwest corner. A wide and boldly designed two-story high
subsidiary front gable, off-center begins at the northwest corner of the house
and rises to its peak near the center. The casement windows in the second and
third story levels of this gable are arranged in long horizontal bands. The window
tier on the second floor is divided by means of four half-timbered panels with
red stucco backgrounds. Third-story windows are flanked by triangular stucco
panels in warm beige, Barge boards are adorned with carved ornament. The rooms
have deep-beamed ceilings and paneled walls. The short vestibule contains a
wide staircase with heavy spiral bannisters and plain chamfered posts, set against
the-east rear wall. To the north left of the vestibule in the northwest corner,
was a service stair hall and pantries, and in the northeast rear corner, but not
accessible directly from the vestibule, the dining room. The kitchen was
located in the basement below. A wide doorway in the-right south wall of the
vestibule opens to the living hall, 18 by 32 feet, which extends through the
house from front to rear. The hall has a deeply beamed ceiling, dark mahogany
woodwork, and a tall, wide, -hooded fireplace. The fireplace, faced with light
blue and white Dutch tile and located against the center of the right south
wall, appears to be free standing because of the wide doorway on either side
through which space flows into the drawing room and library. The beautiful
stained glass in the three front west windows of the hall, in half-naturalistic and half conventional flower patterns.
REFERENCES
John, A. B. and Lawrence, J. C.
(1986). William Watts Shenran House; Written
Historical and Descriptive Data. Historic American Buildings Survey National
Park Service Department of the Interior, Washington, D. C. 20240
John Burchard and Albert Bush-Brown
(1961). The Architecture of America, A Social and Cultural History (Boston and
Toronto, 1961), 170, 188.
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