The middle class as a definable entity emerged in Providence during late 18th-century and this is typical of the houses they built. Many others like it line the north end of Benefit Street and the side streets in Fox Point. Its first owner was described as a cordwainer, the term then commonly used for shoemakers. Shoes remained an important commodity for the house’s early residents, for the second owner, who bought the house in 1820, maintained a shoe store just down the hill at 15 North Main Street. The close proximity of home and work was then quite common.

Like most houses of its character, the Coggeshall House restricts most of its exterior detail to the principal entrance. Here the doorway is framed by a pediment at top carried on Ionic pilasters on either side. Because of the change in grade and the close proximity to the street, access to the front door is provided by a high stoop with a double flight of stairs, sited parallel to the street to confiscate as little space as possible from the sidewalk.

The interior follows the five-room plan arranged around a large central chimney stack with front stairs hard by the south side of the chimney mass opposite the front door. Just as the entrance is the key element in exterior ornamentation, the fireplaces in the principal rooms provide a similar focus on the interior, with each slightly different from the others.

— 2006 Festival of Historic Houses Guidebook

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18 Charles Coggeshall house, 1791-1798. Colonial: 2-1/2 stories; clapboard; gable roof; 5 bay facade; central pedimented Ionic doorway on a high stoop reached by a double flight of steps.