The Tides; Joshua Wilbour House
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Miramar (The Tides; Joshua Wilbour House)
1893, Edward I. Nickerson. 1986, Newport Collaborative. 217 Hope St.
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Miramar (The Tides; Joshua Wilbour House) (John M. Miller)
Edward I. Nickerson (1845–1908) specialized in outfitting Providence's elite with languid Queen Anne and Colonial Revival cottages, such as this summer house he built for the financier and politician Joshua Wilbour. Wilbour did not live here long, and the house soon passed to Isabella DeWolf, who occupied it until 1936. A confident Colonial Revival essay under a high gambrel roof, Miramar is notable for its location directly on Narragansett Bay, to which its generous south-facing veranda opens. An odd wooden balustrade once perched on its roofline, a delicate tiara that was torn off in the hurricane of 1938. Now the house has been converted to condominiums and has been augmented with oversized, abstractly historicizing additions.
Wilbour's house brought another socialite's retreat to this vicinity: Wyndstowe (number 221), an engaging Queen Anne house built in 1899 for the Barnes sisters, Hattie and Isoline. Its architect was Wallis E. Howe, who apparently so pleased his clients that they willed the house back to him in 1935.
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