Another fine and telling home of an architect – here, that of Edmund R. Willson, partner in Stone, Carpenter & Willson, the city’s pre-eminent architectural firm. After Willson, educated at Harvard, MIT, and Paris École des Beaux-Arts, came to Providence, he and his wife chose to purchase a late Federal house built around the corner at 104 Bowen Street, move it to this more scenic spot, and remodel it in the Colonial Revival mode that Willson knew and designed so well. This is the first house on Congdon Street to exploit this near-crest-of-the-hill’s fabulous views, and Willson installed a multiple-level porch across the rear of the house to capture them. Willson, a native of Salem, Massachusetts, surely identified with the continuing use of historic houses. And in doing so, he made a statement that allied him with the local Yankee aristocracy, who became his clients and with whom he enjoyed regular rounds of golf at Providence’s pre-eminent country club, Agawam Hunt, established in 1897 and located across the Seekonk River in more spacious East Providence.
– 2003 Guide to Providence Architecture
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