Built in 1884-85 for mason Charles Richards, this quaint Queen Anne has been modified over the years to suit the needs of its owners. The one-and-a-half story cottage was built during the beginning of a period of steady growth in the neighborhood.
The Providence Cable Tramway was established the year that the Richards House was under construction. It provided easy access to downtown and other points in Providence by way of Angell and Waterman Streets. Richards would live here for a short while, selling the house to Etta Wakefield in the 1890s. By 1906, Harold Weaver – a paint salesman – lived here, and the side porch was added under his ownership. The cable cars would carry him to the central business district where he worked. A later owner was the Hawkinson family.
By the 1960s, the Hawkinsons altered the ground floor kitchen, turning it into a bedroom adjacent to the bathroom, while relocating the kitchen to the opposite corner of the house. The current owner purchased the house in 1973 and has since performed numerous alterations, all the while respecting the structure.
— Festival of Historic Houses Guidebook, 2019
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