Sherry Cottages

Sherry Cottages

Sherry Cottages John M. Miller

Sherry Cottages

c. 1888. Gibson Ave. (end of Earles Court Rd.)

Earles Court Road terminates in a grassy green, the heart of a symmetrical grouping of Shingle Style cottages, all differently composed, built for Louis Sherry. Sherry, the famous New York restaurateur and owner of Delmonico's, was also the caterer for the Narragansett Casino. He developed this compound as a rental property. Originally there were six houses. Two front on Gibson Avenue and flank the open axis into the court (on the corners of Westmoreland and Woodward), each with a turret to mark the front corners of the property. Two more behind these also remain. They are set more deeply into the property at right angles to the other two (facing Westmoreland and Woodward respectively). Behind these, two more at the back of the property (no longer extant), again frontally oriented and still more deeply set into the property, filled in the steplike arc of the houses around the green. And a little behind the center of the green a symmetrical structure with tall pyramidal roof flanked by two more turrets completed the composition. This housed a community restaurant, with some single guest rooms. The effect was relaxed and picturesque, yet sophisticated and ordered. Today it is difficult to discern the arrangement in the summer because of the luxuriant planting.

Writing Credits