Francis W. Carpenter was a principal in the metal-manufacturing firm Congdon & Carpenter, active in Providence for 200 years beginning in the 18th century. He was also active in Central Congregational Church, just next door and facing Angell Street. As that building, designed by New York’s Carrère & Hastings, was rising, Carpenter, who served on the committee that oversaw its construction, commissioned this house for use by the minister at Central. While Carpenter seems to have retained title to the house (and did so until his death in the 1920s), its first occupant was the Reverend Edward C. Moore, who occupied it in 1894.
The house achieves its strong Colonial character from the contained massing, classicizing detail, and emblematic gambrel roof with hip-roof dormers.
Mr. Carpenter commissioned his own more ornamental home from Carrère & Hastings only a few years later.
– 2009 Festival of Historic Houses Guidebook
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