Avondale Farm

A ca. 1735 house is imaginatively reborn with upgrades and additions.

The Georgian-period Colonel Pendleton House in Westerly, Rhode Island, was in peril, as was the land that surrounded it. As part of a complex, public–private initiative, it was saved and rebuilt through the efforts of owners Charles and Deborah Royce. The work was done by the Cooper Group, a specialist five-company collaborative providing preservation and restoration management, structural repairs, energy upgrades, historical additions, and period millwork.

“Of all the things we accomplished with the Pendleton House,” says Brian Cooper, “I am most proud that we were

able to save Sir William Pepperrell’s banquet hall.” Cooper is referring to the long-lost banquet room from the 1742 Sparhawk mansion in Kittery, Maine, which was demolished in 1967. The Royces bought elements of the historic room, salvaged from the house commissioned by Sir William Pepperrell for his daughter on her marriage. It has become the Royces’ library, part of an addition to the Pendleton House.

Creation of the Avondale Farm Preserve, a property of the Westerly Land Trust, was launched, in part, to save and rebuild the Pendleton House. Trust land surrounds its four-acre private parcel; the public land provides walking trails on 50 acres of coastal farmland once slated to become a housing development.

“Chuck, my husband, spent summers in Watch Hill [a village of Westerly] as a child,” says story editor and novelist Deborah Royce. Financier Chuck Royce is a pioneer of small-cap investing. The Westerly Land Trust is not the couple’s first rodeo.

“When we met,” Deborah continues, “I was an actress ... Chuck suggested we take on restoration of a 1939 movie theater, the Avon, in Stamford, Connecticut.” It became a nonprofit art-house cinema. They also rebuilt the vast, oceanfront hotel the Ocean House, a Westerly landmark since the 19th century.

Still, neither of them professes to be a historic-preservationist. “They are community people,” says their friend and interior designer Iliana Moore of Bronxville, New York. “I’ve helped them with homes in Florida, Connecticut, New York. They are passionate about what historic architecture means in a community.”

In the rebuilding, Brian Cooper reused 18thcentury cut-granite blocks to build a plinth,

upon which the house rests at a right angle to the barn. Hayward Gatch designed a brickfront ell that houses a modern kitchen, a master suite—and the library: Pepperrell’s salvaged banquet hall. The new wing takes design inspiration from Southern Greek Revival architecture, with a two-storey verandah at the rear.

“A lot of original millwork survived,” says designer Iliana Moore. “The contractors were purists, and used every piece.” Chimneys were replaced, and quoins now dress up the fa•ade. “In early housebuilding, three key elements don’t come from the woods,” Cooper says. “Iron for nails and hardware, glass, and slaked lime. So we even tried our hand at making slaked lime from oyster shells.”

Original timbers were repaired using vintage white oak. Original clapboards, glass, wroughtiron nails, and rose-head nails were recycled and reused. Cooper Group companies duplicated 12/12 windows and installed the old glass, and replicated trim and entry treatments.

Iliana Moore created an interior scheme that relies on the furniture and oriental rugs collected by the Royces. The idea was that the rooms should look like those of a wealthy Colonist.

A brick-front addition joined the restored 18thcentury Pendleton house in Rhode Island.

RIGHT The lovely old wood paneling in the family library was once in the banquet room of Sparhawk Hall, a great Georgian house built in 1742 in Kittery, Maine.

LEFT The living room’s Georgian elements include a fireplace with a bolection moulding surround, pilasters with Corinthian capitals, deep dentil moulding, and a paneled wainscot. Two summer beams accentuate the fireplace wall.

ABOVE Each corner of the dining room boasts a shell cupboard reproduced after one found in an 18th-century house in this area. The homeowner chose to paint them a saturated shade of coral; the flattering color is one she always uses in dining rooms.

The project took five years, and was spearheaded by Brian Cooper, Iliana Moore, and builder–designer Hayward H. Gatch III. First, the Pendleton House was meticulously disassembled, catalogued, labeled, and stored while a new foundation was dug. Early in the process, owner Charles Royce and Hayward Gatch decided that the house should move slightly to the west, to align better with an enormous 1840 BARN that had been moved to the property. “Chuck and Hayward put a lot of thought into the view corridors,” Deborah Royce says. “And, had we not moved the site of the house, we wouldn’t have had space to build the new wing to the east.”

The new wing is patterned after Southern Greek Revival houses; the two-storey porch is on the rear-side elevation.

BELOW The kitchen features such classics as glass shelving, white marble counters, and pendant lamps.

The 19th-century barn was found in Maine and moved here. During construction, it served to store house parts, and as a staging area, design studio, and workshop. A plinth created from 18th-century cut-granite blocks keeps the house from being upstaged by the barn.

ABOVE A sitting room adjacent to the kitchen exudes charm with its red-and-white checks and floral Chinoiserie upholstery.

RIGHT A guest room on the second floor of the 18thcentury house has cheerful yellow woodwork and a reproduction flame-maple, pencil-post bed—a fine reproduction. The paneled wall and granite fireplace are original.

ABOVE The master bedroom suite is on the second floor of the new kitchen wing. Furnished in a classic New England scheme, it reflects the homeowner’s love for antiques and gently worn oriental rugs. TOP A children’s retreat now occupies space under the 18th-century hand-hewn beams of the attic. Inspiration for this blue-and-white color scheme came from Sweden.