For the Love of History and Nature

David and Teri Gregg loved their life on Providence’s East Side in the early part of the past decade. Art and cultural attractions, acclaimed restaurants, unique shops – it was all what made life in the Renaissance City an ideal place to call home. But as their two- and four-year-old children grew, the couple realized they wanted more open space for their family to roam. “The yard was tiny,” says David, and at that time he worked at the University of Rhode Island, so house hunting in South County quickly commenced.

Their wish list included a home on about two acres that allowed for room to wander and to store their boat. When David and Teri first saw a particular South Kingstown listing, though, they knew they had hit it right. “When we pulled in, we were the first ones there,” David recalls. “It was the first day of the listing and it just absolutely spoke to me... [My wife] knew I had fallen in love.” Teri adds, “We arrived at the property and I was smitten with the land; the proximity to town and the house reminded me so much of the farm house I grew up in Killingworth, Connecticut. However, I did not think the house would pass David’s critical eye. He took one pass around the property and came back with a grin on his face and excitement in his eyes. He too had seen the amazing potential here. I knew we had found our home.”

The property spoke to a handful of others as well, because by the time they explored the home and surrounding property, a trio of pickup trucks lined the driveway. Where David and Teri saw a mid-19th century home, albeit in need of some TLC, others saw the land’s development potential. David took pen to paper and wrote the owner, an elderly widow, an impassioned letter about how he and his family would care for the home the way she and her late husband had done. “She didn’t want it developed,” David says. Soon after, the home was theirs. “For me, it was a sense of place, of history; just the feeling when you look at the house and land that many hands have been here before me.”

The house was built between 1850 and 1855, David estimates. “In style, it’s called an ‘upright and wing.’” The residential architectural style was one of the more predominate ones from the mid-to late 19th century and consists of a two-story gable main block with either a one or two story wing. “Upright” denotes to the vertical part of the house, while “wing” refers to the lower side section. (Other names for the style include “temple and wing” or “gable front and wing.”) “It’s a very rural version of Italianate,” says David. “It looks a little like a classical revival except the gable faces the street.”

Though the Greggs were equally curious and eager to learn about the history of the home and property, it didn’t take an extensive amount of work. “There are families that have been here 300 years and are still here,” he says of the Wakefield-Peace Dale area.” There’s lots of history.” A neighbor happily offered the family a photograph of the home, where Saugatucket Road crosses the Saugatucket River, dating back to 1890, and they were able to secure another from 1910. “It’s one of the oldest roads [here], laid out in the 1690s. That corner has been there for 300 years.” David understands a farm north of the river was divided continually through the years, assessing that his acreage was likely carved out around 1850 with the house soon to follow.

“The first owner, Roland F. Gardner, had a number of farms in South County and in the area. This is the one where he lived; I think that’s why he had the money to build this big house – big for back then.” Gardner’s heirs sold the house in the early 20th century. Years later, it became a dairy farm, which is when David suspects the barn was built. Its architectural style is consistent with the “sanitary dairy barns” of the day, with milking stalls and a cement floor to wash away waste. “That there now was probably built in 1915,” he says of the barn. “The government was promoting that style of barn [at the time].”

While the home’s exterior maintained the fundamentals of a historic build, the interior was decidedly modern – from when it was renovated in the 1970s. Before even moving in, the couple was busy removing an inor- dinate amount of seafoam green car- pet, wood paneling and Brady Bunch details. They stopped short, however, of removing everything completely. “We left a significant amount of the 1970 detail – it’s part of the history of the house,” he laughs. “You walk in and immediately think its 1972, but with a contemporary color on the walls without the paneling, it looks like its own thing.” They were cautious not to gut the place and try and create a historically accurate replica. Even though they had the rare advantage of owning original photos of the home, David says they wanted to pay homage to the century and decades that had passed. “We want to add layers... we wanted to put back the character. I used to tell people it was a character-free zone.”

To remedy the situation, they added details like bull’s eye molding on the windows. “The house when we bought it had a lot of little rooms, so we tried to open it up a little bit to increase circulation – we’d never do an open floor plan.” A newly constructed back hall also helped to organize the traffic pattern on the first floor. Any rotted exterior cedar shingles were replaced and the new entry was made not to replicate the past but to acknowledge its history with a contemporary hint. “There are limits to what you can do,” says David. “We don’t have the resources to wind the clock back and make it exactly.”

The surrounding acres, however, effortlessly seem to be frozen in time. Rolling green pastures and dry stone walls set the scene for yesteryear, when much of this area was family-owned, working farms. “My favorite spot on the property is the back field at the top of a little knoll,” says Teri. “The noise of the street doesn’t reach there and the swallows and dragonflies swoop around you. The view of the barn, garden and house is perfection. My kids and I spend many happy hours there.”

The family the Greggs bought from were all green thumbs – the gentleman of the house was even a URI Master Gardner who moved the stone wall to plant an orchard. “This guy was serious – you don’t move a stone wall eight feet to the left. He put in like 40 blueberry bushes, planted an orchard with 12 pear trees, 20 apple trees and about eight hazelnut trees,” says David. A vast asparagus bed, impressive raspberry patch, magnolia and butternut trees just begin to explain the variety. In fact, David says, it’s not uncommon for him to come across a species not common in this area as the previous owner experimented with plantings. “[The widow] was hoping the next owner would appreciate what her husband had done, and I guess she got lucky because I understand what he did and respect it.”

As a family, the Greggs, whose children are now eight and 11, appreciate the local wildlife. They clean out nesting boxes for birds and ducks every fall after a new family has had its young and flown the coop. “I wish we had fewer deer, coyotes, red and grey foxes and fishers,” he says, but it’s all part of life on the farm. Teri adds, “My favorite times have been having the kids’ school classes here to pick pumpkins, press cider and go for nature walks around our ‘gnome path,’ the weddings for our friends that we have celebrated here, and the many, many gatherings. We love sharing what we have. I learned how to can from my friend Gabrielle Torphy and have been able to feed my family awesome food. And we get to share our extra produce with the local food bank. I don’t think I have ever been more content in my life.”