Welcome Arnold House

About this Property

#Redevelopment

2015

The owner, Walter Bronhard, submitted an application to rezone the property to allow a higher density of dwelling on the property. If approved, this would have allowed the property to be demolished to allow a new building with more units. The City Council denied the request but requested modifications to the application that would have made it more likely to approve. Source: “Endangered Properties — Owner seeks to raze College Hill house”

2016

Exterior work on the deteriorating house was underway but abruptly halted, which allowed broken windows and open doors to introduce the elements and vandalism to the property. The ground floor windows were eventually closed up.

Bronhard had intentions to renovate the interior, but was said to have discovered “serious structural issues.” Bronhard requested a permit from the Historic District Commission to raze the building and “reconstruct an architecturally identical version of the property.” Source: “Endangered Properties — Owner seeks…”

January 26, 2017

The house is listed on the Providence Preservation Society’s Ten Most Endangered List. Source: “Endangered Properties — Owner seeks…”

October 16, 2017

The Interstate 195 Redevelopment District Commission voted against a plan that would have moved the historic Welcome Arnold House to site 1A. There is would have served as “a museum of Rhode Island colonial and revolutionary history and a point of departure for Bob Burke’s innovative and educational Independence Trail.” Testifying in favor was Patrick Conley, Barnaby Evans, and Friedrich St. Florian. The approval went to a proposed residential building that has yet to be built.¹

2018

Mr. Bronhard continued to restore the house and not demolish it. The deterioration and the vandalism, however, meant the interior details were lost. Nothing of the original house remains other than the basic framing timbers.²

#Current Events

The house has been divided into four 3 bedroom apartments that each list for rent at over $3000 a month (in 2024).

#History

From the College Hill Historic District nomination form, Edward F. Sanderson & Keith N. Morgan, January 1976

21 Planet — Welcome Arnold House (1785–1795): 2 1/2 story, clapboarded frame, flank gable roof house with a partially-raised basement and it gable end to the street. The six-bay-wide facade has an off-center entry with a Doric portico that replaces the original doorway. Original trim includes a modillion cornice, broken out over the second story windows, heavy molded window caps and a heavy cornice over the ground-level entry in the west elevation. Federal with Greek revival alterations.

Did you Know?

Mathematician and almanac-maker Benjamin West joined Joseph Brown to observe the transit of Venus on June 3, 1769. Their apparatus was a four-inch reflector telescope ordered especially from England and was later given to Brown University. Transit and Planet Streets, near the site of observation, were renamed in honor of the event.

Who is Welcome Arnold, and why all this fuss about his house?

By Sarah Gleason

Welcome Arnold was a prominent Providence gentleman at the time of the American Revolution. In 1772, at age 27, he plotted ¹ the capture of HMS Gaspee in Narragansett Bay. As many Rhode Islanders know, this was the first act of civil disobedience against the British crown, three years before the Boston Tea Party. The following year, Arnold married Patience Greene in the Warwick house of her uncle, the Governor of Rhode Island. ² Welcome, noted as one of five gentlemen in Providence who owned a carriage with horses, was a suitable choice for Patience. After the Revolution he became a leading Providence merchant, and in 1788 he and Nicholas Brown constructed a rum distillery in Fox Point. We can assume that he, like Nicholas, dabbled in the slave trade.

In 1773, soon after his marriage, Welcome purchased the Sabin Tavern, on the corner of what today is South Main — then Towne Street — and Planet streets. The previous owner was Marcy Dexter, the presumed widow of Edward Dexter, lost at sea. For a time, Marcy ran a tavern here, managed by James Sabin, a licensed innkeeper. But in May of 1773 she petitioned to sell her house to cover debts, and it was purchased for 93 pounds by Arnold and two of his brothers. The population of Providence then was around 7,000, and this area around Market Square was the fashionable part of town. The Arnolds’ neighbors included the four Brown brothers, Joseph, John, Nicholas, and Moses — then being raised by their uncle, Obediah Brown, following their father’s death.

In 1785 Welcome Arnold purchased land north of his house from William Morris, a plot with dimensions similar to those of 21 Planet Street, and built the house that stands here today. We can only conjecture its original purpose. Twelve years and several children after their marriage, the Arnolds may have built it to house some of their growing family, or perhaps for their servants. Nonetheless, as one of only two 18th century houses on South Main – the other being the c. 1787 Capt. Joseph Tillinghast House at 403 South Main – it is a rare reminder of this once-fashionable, 18th century, part of town.

The Sabin Inn was eventually torn down and the commercial Gaspee Building (c. 1891- 1961) was built on its site. Today it is a parking lot. When the Inn was torn down, the section that housed the parlor where the conspirators plotted the capture of the Gaspee was moved up the hill and joined to an existing house, 209 William Street. For a time, this building served as headquarters of the Daughters of the American Republic.

A growing number of Arnold properties remained in the family until 1818, when the holdings were divided into four equal parts and distributed to Arnold heirs. Tristam Burgess and his wife, Mary (Arnold) at this time became the owners of the Arnold homestead and lot on Planet Street.

In 1895 William Bailey, executor for a later Tristam Burgess, sold the Planet Street property at auction to Henry Childs of Providence; and the house changed ownership several times after that. For a time in the early 20th century, this street and others nearby housed a thriving Cape Verdean Community. In her 2007 film, “Some Kind of Funny Puerto Rican,” Claire Andrade-Watkins documents the rich culture of the many families living here. She remembers walking with her father to the docks when the schooner Ernestina arrived filled with emigrants and supplies. But in the late sixties, the building of Route 195 displaced many families; and simultaneously, as remaining homes became attractive to those wanting to live near Brown University, gentrification took a further toll on the community. When operations of the Port of Providence were moved from what is now India Point Park to Field’s Point, across the river, the docks were no longer an extension of the community. Andrade-Watkins recalls that ten families, including her own, were displaced from the short block of South Main between Planet, Power, and Benefit streets.

In 1947, Gino Conti bought 21 Planet from fellow countryman Angelo Scorpio and his wife, Elsa. Conti had come from Florence, Italy, as a child and graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1923. He became a well-known painter and sculptor, and his works can be found in museums here and in Europe. In the late 1930s, the Works Progress Administration commissioned Conti to paint six murals at The University of Rhode Island’s Edwards Hall. These were forgotten as the building evolved and the murals covered up, but they were rediscovered and restored in 2010.

Conti taught children’s art classes for many years from his home. He was much loved and remembered for his eccentricities. His pet turtles, for instance, walked about at night with candles attached to their backs. He also had a magnificent jade plant in a center room which blossomed once every ten years, and he cut away the ceiling to allow it to grow freely. More practically, to assure he had the light he needed in his studio, Conti bought a vacant lot across the street, where the Maria Brown house once stood. He also rented apartments to tenants, one to now-notable Rhode Island abstract painter Irene Lawrence.

The Welcome Arnold house continues to survive its most recent threat, demolition by a landlord who wished to build apartments on the site. Strong opposition by the Providence Preservation Society and others committed to preserving the little left of the early history of College Hill prevented its total destruction. But while the exterior remains, the interior has been gutted and replaced by five units. Until solutions can be found for more fully preserving these vulnerable fragments of our built past, we can expect more losses as the unbridled economics of housing continue unchecked.

#In the News

Endangered Properties — Owner seeks to raze College Hill house

by Christine Dun
Providence Journal | February 20, 2017 (abridged)

[…] the Welcome Arnold House does stand out as one of the very few boarded-up houses in pricey College Hill, and in January, it made the Preservation Society’s 2017 Most Endangered Properties list. The property manager, Tracy Kelleher, says that according to owner Walter L. Bronhard, the house is structurally unsound due to post-beetle and termite infestation, and it should be torn down. Bronhard could not be reached directly for comment. […]

Bronhard owns at least 45 historic houses on College Hill, according to the society. Many of his properties are multifamily rentals. Bronhard owns multiple buildings on Benefit Street; his website advertises rentals at 19, 34, 110, 122, 136, 161, 280, 296, 302, 308, 314, 344, 350, 372, and 378 Benefit.

Preservationists worry that Bronhard appears to be allowing the Welcome Arnold House to deteriorate to support his case to demolish the property.

According to the preservation society, “exterior work began on the house in 2016, but abruptly halted. In the following months, broken windows and doors were left unrepaired, exposing the interior to the elements. After several neighbors voiced their concern, the bottom floor was secured, though the upper floors remain open.”

“In 2015, an application was put forth to rezone the property from a R-2 to C-2 residential zone, which would allow more dwelling unit density,” the society said in its Most Endangered Properties report. “This petition was vetoed by the City Planning Commission with recommendations, but still recommended the application be pushed forward to be approved by the City Council. If this proposal moves forward, the house may potentially be demolished.”

Kelleher said Bronhard “intended to renovate” the house, but serious structural issues were discovered during the interior demolition. She said Bronhard is requesting a permit from the Historic District Commission to raze the building and “reconstruct an architecturally identical version of the property.”

The owner denied a Journal request to photograph the house’s interior. There are safety reasons, Kelleher said. Architect George Bennett Jr. said that within the past six months, three structural engineers have each independently concluded that the building has reached the end of its useful life.

Brent Runyon, executive director of the Providence Preservation Society, said the society always reaches out to property owners before releasing the Most Endangered lists, but “we did not receive a response” from Bronhard. He added that the group has also not received responses to two previous letters detailing concerns about some of Bronhard’s properties on Benefit Street.

Kelleher said Bronhard has invested millions of dollars to restore properties in College Hill, including $2 million on the Burnside House alone. At the Burnside House, the society has said, the masonry is in poor condition, there are missing tiles on the roof, and there is chipping and flaking paint on the doors, windows and trim. The decorative molding on the porch and balcony is “in especially poor condition.”

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Dunn, Christine. “ENDANGERED PROPERTIES Owner seeks to raze College Hill house.” Providence Journal (RI), sec. RI News, 20 Feb. 2017, p. A1. NewsBank: America’s News, https://infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/news/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info%3Asid/infoweb.newsbank.com&svc_dat=NewsBank&req_dat=D4BD6B42F1AB4706B5E1244D477DEE03&rft_val_format=info%3Aofi/fmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Actx&rft_dat=document_id%3Anews/162ACB70CA6996A0. Accessed 4 Nov. 2024.