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(Photograph by Andrew Hope)
A fine example of this firm's work in the Queen Anne mode, the Klapp House has uncoursed Seekonk stone set in pink mortar on the first story with gray-green slate on the second, the overall composition relying more on juxtaposition of form than on application of ornament. The local Art Workers Guild designed and executed some elaborate interiors (not open to the public). The entrance hall, staircased, fireplaced, and paneled in the typical Queen Anne way, is especially delightful, with a mural in the Pre-Raphaelite manner by Sydney Burleigh, decorative painter also for the Fleur-de-Lys Studios and the Providence Art Club ( PR58, PR59), on the theme of “May and December” romance, tucked into the fireplace inglenook. Stained glass windows which could portray a young wife and older husband, also in medieval costume, are angled into the stair landing. Whether or not the images make a biographical allusion, Lyman Klapp, owner of a local oil firm, died before living a year in his new house. The barn, elaborately decked out as a sculptural, shingled, and overtly charming pendant to the house, stands at the rear. In fact, it seems less a barn than an overblown playhouse masquerading in a grown-up role.