Arnold House


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Arnold House in Lincoln, Rhode Island

Arnold House is a rare surviving example of a stone-ender, a once-common building type featuring a massive chimney end wall. Built by Eleazer Arnold in 1693, the house features stone work that reflects the origins and skills of the settlers who emigrated from the western part of England.

Garret of Arnold House in Lincoln, Rhode Island

Arnold, a landowner with a wife and ten children, secured a license for a “Publick House.” Tavern customers were probably served in the great room or hall of the house. The structure has sustained many alterations over the centuries. Visitors find evidence of seventeenth-century construction methods, eighteenth-century additions, nineteenth-century graffiti, and the twentieth-century approach to preservation that restored the house to its present appearance.

Open
Saturday – Sunday, year round
11:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Tours on the hour. Last tour at 4:00 p.m.
Closed most major holidays.

The Arnold House is a Historic New England property.

 


Top photo: Arnold House - The house was built in 1693 by a prominent Providence man, Eleazer Arnold. On completion he lived in the house year-round with his wife Eleanor Smith and ten children. This type of house is known as a stone-ender. It is a regional adaption of stone building traditions and open plan houses from western and northern parts of England. This type of building was constructed primarily in Rhode Island, parts of southeastern Massachusetts, and eastern Connecticut in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. What makes this house unique is its size compared to the average stone ender, as it has four rooms on the first floor (two heated), two on the second (one heated), and an attic with a gable and a window for light.

Bottom photo: Garret - The garret is one of the best places to view the framing and evidence of the earlier alterations to the building. The garret was used both for storage and as a sleeping chamber. From this room you can see how the house was constructed using post-and beam construction. The primary oak framing members were connected to each other by the mortise-and-tenon system and no nails were used in this frame.