The Nightingale–Brown House is a historic house at 357 Benefit Street on College Hill in

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...

. It is home to the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage at

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

. The house is architecturally significant as one of the largest surviving wood-frame houses of the 18th century, and is historically significant as the longtime seat (from 1814 to 1985) of the Brown family, whose members have been leaders of the Providence civic, social, and business community since the 17th century, and include nationally significant leaders of America's industrialization in the 19th century. The house was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

and declared a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

in 1989. and

Description

The house is a large three-story wood-frame structure, set on a lot roughly in size, built in 1791 for Colonel Joseph Nightingale. Its main facade is five bays wide, with a central projecting section. The center entrance is framed by sidelight windows and topped by an elliptical fanlight window. This framing is one of the earliest known uses of such windows in the United States. The entrance is sheltered by a square porch supported by columns, with a low railing above. Atop the doorway is a Palladian window, whose side windows are topped by dentillated cornices. The projecting section is topped by a triangular pediment, whose deeply recessed tympanum is

modillion A modillion is an ornate bracket, more horizontal in shape and less imposing than a corbel. They are often seen underneath a cornice which it helps to support. Modillions are more elaborate than dentils (literally translated as small teeth). All ...

ed and filled with a window. The corners of the projecting section, and of the main and side blocks, are all

quoin Quoins ( or ) are masonry blocks at the corner of a wall. Some are structural, providing strength for a wall made with inferior stone or rubble, while others merely add aesthetic detail to a corner. According to one 19th century encyclopedia, t ...

ed, and the window surrounds on the first two floors also feature quoined and

voussoir A voussoir () is a wedge-shaped element, typically a stone, which is used in building an arch or vault. Although each unit in an arch or vault is a voussoir, two units are of distinct functional importance: the keystone and the springer. The ...

ed surrounds. The main block is covered by a hip roof, with a low balustrade surrounding it. This appearance largely matches the first known image of the house, a drawing made in 1802. In 1814,

Nicholas Brown, Jr. Nicholas Brown Jr. (April 4, 1769 – September 27, 1841) was an American businessman and philanthropist from Providence, Rhode Island, who was the namesake of Brown University. Early life Nicholas Brown Jr. was the son of Rhoda Jenckes (1741– ...

purchased the home. His descendants owned the house until the death of Anne S.K. Brown in 1985, at which point it was donated to

. In 1853 John Carter Brown hired Thomas Tefft to design a carriage house for the property, and in 1858 a two-story addition was added to the south side. It is unknown if Tefft was involved in the design of the addition, but it has stylistic similarities to the carriage house. In 1862 Brown hired Richard Upjohn to design a library wing, which was built in 1862–1864 and is northeast of the main block and forms a courtyard with the carriage house. This addition, like the earlier one, repeats stylistic elements of the original 1791 structure.

Frederick Law Olmsted Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822August 28, 1903) was an American landscape architect, journalist, social critic, and public administrator. He is considered to be the father of landscape architecture in the USA. Olmsted was famous for co- ...

was hired to design the landscaping for the grounds in 1890; this work is still evident despite modest alterations.

Occupants

Nicholas Brown, Jr. was the son of

Nicholas Brown, Sr. Nicholas Brown Sr. (July 26, 1729 – May 29, 1791) was a Providence, Rhode Island slave-trader, merchant, civic leader and co-signer of the charter of the College of Rhode Island in 1763. In 1771, Nicholas Brown Sr. was instrumental in convinci ...

, a leading Providence merchant. He was a leading industrial developer of the early 19th century, and was such a benefactor of the local college that it was renamed

in his honor. He also served in the state legislature, and cofounded the Providence Athenaeum. John Carter Brown is best known for amassing a large library, now owned by the university and operated as the John Carter Brown Library.

Anne S. K. Brown Anne Seddon Kinsolving Brown (1906–1985) was an American historian, socialite, and collector of military memorabilia who married into the prominent Rhode Island Brown family, founders of Brown University. Early life Anne was born on March 25, ...

, the last Brown descendant to live in this house, amassed a large collection of military documents and artifacts, which are also now owned by the university. Her son, J. Carter Brown, who directed the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...

, was raised in the house.

John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage

Th
John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage
is currently housed in the building. The center, founded as the John Nicholas Brown Center for the Study of American Civilization in 1979 and part of Brown University since 1995, collaborates on public and scholarly humanities projects with local, national, and international partners working in the arts, history, education and community engagement. The center also offers a master's degree in Public Humanities through Brown.

Gallery

File:Painting of Mr. Nightingale’s House at Providence, Rhode Island.jpg, A painting of the house by Alice Pelham Banniter (c. 1802) File:Nightingale–Brown House Providence off-center view RI 2012.jpg, The house in 2012

References

External links