Southerly/Landfall/Wyndham Ridge (1900) (Newport, Rhode Island)

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Southerly/Landfall, Wyndham Ridge, the Alfred M. Coats House (ca 1895-96; Ogden Codman, architect):

An exceptionally restrained, almost severe, 2½-story, 7-bay-façade stuccoed house in the manner of late 17th- /early 18th-century English country house with low stone foundation, semi-circular-fanlight center entrance within a balustraded 1-story Tuscan-column porch that spreads across the façade’s recessed central 3 bays, flanked on east and west by slightly projecting 2-bay pavilions; quoined corners; splayed lintels above the 1st- and 2nd- story 9-over-9 windows; large scrolled-console-framed 12-over-12 window with paneled lintel above the principal entrance; high hip roof; and large central chimney with smaller chimney near the southwest corner.

The house stands atop a slight rise above the street, and its principal entrance, overlooking a motor court, terminates the long axial drive begun at the street by urn-capped stone piers. One of Codman’s early complete house designs in Newport, this is roughly contemporary with Seabeach, 181 Ocean Avenue (q.v.).

Coats (1869-1942) began his career in the family business, J. & P. Coats, Ltd., a multi-national thread manufacturer, at the plant in Pawtucket, he later served as director of several Providence and Pawtucket financial and manufacturing institutions. He built this house around the time of his marriage to Elizabeth Barnewall (1867-1940).

Around 1900, Mr and Mrs Coats further commissioned Codman to design their principal residence, completed in 1902 on Brown Street in Providence (included in the College Hill National Historic Landmark District), Rhode Island’s only Codman project not in Newport. Beatrix Jones Farrand provided Coats with plans for a formal walled garden, but whether it was realized and, if so, how it related to this house, remain unknown.

Robert Yarnall Richie aerial photo ca. 1932-1934 - digitalcollections.smu.edu/u?/ryr,412