1859. 112 Peirce St.
For a commanding sight with a view across East Greenwich Cove toward Potowomut Neck, two contemporaneous houses illustrate diverging architectural aesthetics and orientation of building to site at mid-century. The foursquare Knowles House—its architectonic quality now somewhat diminished by the removal of a one-story, three-bay front porch—uses the monitor-on-hip roof form seen across the state in buildings from the first half of the nineteenth century; the monitor here is remarkably tall, doubtless to exploit the view. Rose Cottage typifies the picturesque, asymmetrical villas just coming into vogue—especially for suburban, picturesque locations—and its glazed octagonal cupola is another response to the view.