Built by Richard Clemence in 1691, the Clemence-Irons House is a rare surviving example of a "stone-ender," a once-common building type first developed in the western part of England.
The house offers tours.
Before European settlement, Native Americans planted their crops of corn and beans on Conanicut Island overlooking Narragansett Bay. In 1789, Job Watson purchased a piece of this rich farmland, and for the next two centuries, five successive generations of the Watson family cultivated the land, changing their crops and practices as needed to adapt to the evolving market. Today, the property is still a working family farm. The farmers raise cattle and sheep for beef, lamb, and wool markets; grow acres of grass for winter hay supplies; make compost for fertilizer; and cultivate a large vegetable garden. The 1796 house, still used as the farmers' residence, is not open to the public. Visitors are welcome to explore the farmland on their own, following a self-guided walking tour. Educational programs and group tours are available by appointment.
The farm offers tours and educational programs.
Built around 1687 for the young family of William Boardman, a local joiner, this house has survived remarkably intact since its construction.
The house offers tours.
The historic Lyman Estate Greenhouses, dating back to 1804, are among the oldest examples still in existence in the United States.
The greenhouses offer tours.
Constructed between 1694 and 1701 for a farming family, the Abraham Browne House was originally a modest one-over-one dwelling, probably with a minor dependency to one side. Although the house has evolved through a series of enlargements, they occurred behind the original block, thus preserving the profile of the one-over-one elevation (the only exception to this was a 19th-century addition which was removed before 1919). The Browne House is one of fewer than a half dozen houses in New England to retain this profile.
The house offers tours.
At the end of the 19th century, railroads opened the Berkshires, which soon became a summer destination for wealthy New Yorkers. This 1825 brick structure, which dates from the late Federal period, was purchased by William and Elizabeth Doane as a summer home in 1875. Around 1900, the Doanes doubled its size by adding a shingle-style ell and remodeled the interior of the main house. They decorated the house in an eclectic manner with European and American furnishings, much of which they collected during their extensive travels. The house was preserved by the Doanes' daughter, Vipont Merwin, who added her own memorabilia to the decorative scheme.
The house offers tours.
Built in 1665, the well-crafted timber-framed house—complete with binding and bridging summer beams, a large number of connecting joints, and interior finish trim—attests to the wealth and social standing of the home's builder and first owner, Eleazor Gedney. Gedney was a successful shipwright related by marriage to John Turner, builder of the House of Seven Gables. The house is significant not only for its structural carpentry, but also for its evidence of early decorative finishes in the hall chamber and parlor. The introduction of lath and plaster ceilings, beam casings, and paneled walls by the mid 18th century preserved the colorful paint evidence underneath.
The house offers tours.
Built by Stephen Swett in 1670, the original portion of the house was constructed on a single-room plan with chimney bay and faced south. It was enlarged and amended in several stages until 1756.
The house offers tours.
Built around 1715 with materials salvaged from an earlier structure, the Dole-Little House was constructed for Richard Dole, a cattleman. The house was built on a two-room, central-chimney plan with a small kitchen shed at the rear. This shed has since been replaced with a larger lean-to. Decorative carpentry and finish include chamfered edges, molded sheathing (especially in the great hall and parlor), and possibly original stair balusters.
The house offers tours.
Coffin House chronicles the evolution of domestic life in rural New England over three centuries. The 1678 structure, which contains the family's furnishings, began as a simple dwelling built in the post-medieval style. Tristam Coffin and his family lived, cooked and slept in two or possibly three rooms; their possessions were few. About 1700, the house was more than doubled in size to provide living space for a married son and his family. As the family grew, partitions were added and lean-tos built so that different generations could continue to live together under one roof. In 1785, two Coffin brothers legally divided the structure into two separate dwellings, each with its own kitchen and living spaces. With rooms from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, Coffin House depicts the impact of an expanding economy and new concepts, such as the notion of privacy, on architecture and modes of living.
The house offers tours and educational programs.