Historic Houses

The Stephen J. Albro House is a one-and-a-half-story Queen Anne cottage built on a small, simple scale. It was constructed c.1876 and stands on the original site. The Newport Restoration Foundation (NRF) acquired the building in 1969 as a condition of buying other land and buildings on Green Street and restored it in 1975.

While the house lies outside the prime focus period for NRF, the building is a lovely vernacular example of a local style and features many elements of the Queen Anne style. It shows many elements of this style in a very concise package, with shingles and clapboards for siding, bracketed window headers and cornices, and an irregular footprint with a quirky dormer over the front entry.

When NRF purchased the house as a condition of buying other land and buildings, this practice was not uncommon. During the early years of its existence, NRF was intent on buying eighteenth-century buildings. At that time, some owners would gladly sell if other buildings were also purchased as part of a package. Thus, NRF came to own several nineteenth- and even twentieth-century buildings, in order to purchase the desired nearby eighteenth-century structure.