This home at 320 Slater Avenue is one of the younger historic homes in Providence. Occasionally referred to as the “Mad Men House,” for its mid-century design, this ranch-style home was constructed in 1955 and fully restored in 2013. The architect, Robert Hill, appears to have drawn inspiration from other designers, including Louis Kahn and Frank Lloyd Wright.

In some ways, the home’s drama-packed history lives up to the “Mad Men” moniker. The man who commissioned the home, Dr. Maurice L. Silver, was a prominent neurosurgeon in the community. He served as chief of the neurosurgery department at Miriam Hospital from 1952 until 1960, and chief of the same department at Saint Joseph’s Hospital from 1960 until 1963, around which time he and his wife Alene divorced. Their divorce was fairly publicized two regular — albeit wealthy — citizens. When Dr. Silver failed to show up to his custody hearing, the presiding family court judge admonished him and awarded Alene full custody of their children, as well as a roughly $21,000 annual support payment. Alene requested the divorce on the grounds of “extreme cruelty.”

Prior to the divorce, the Silver home had been an anchor for Jewish life in the city. In the spring of 1957, Temple Beth El presented a series of panel discussions on the Middle East, including one titled “Oil in the Middle East,” in which Alene took part. The family also hosted Colonel Basil Herman, affiliated with the Israeli Consulate in New York, in their home on Slater Avenue for an Israel Bond brunch in 1958. Dr. Silver appears to have been particularly active in Jewish circles.

As a neurosurgeon, Dr. Silver had a career of ups and downs. He frequently gave public lectures and participated in academic symposiums related to the field of neuroscience, often specifically regarding cerebral palsy, which he appears to have been an expert on. According to Who’s Who in the World of Jewry, a publication from 1972 listing hundreds of prominent Jewish Americans, Dr. Silver was a member of the American Academy for Cerebral Palsy. However, he was also embroiled in a couple of medical negligence lawsuits throughout his career, including one in Providence in which a widower accused Dr. Silver of severing a cranial nerve in his late wife’s brain that paralyzed half of her face.

In the middle of his divorce, Dr. Silver moved to Honolulu, Hawaii, where he remained for many years. While there, he was indicted on six counts of federal tax evasion and tax fraud charges. To refute these charges, Dr. Silver’s lawyer argued that he was the victim of “one of the most virulent pockets of religious discrimination in medicine in America,” according to an article from March 1972 from The Providence Journal.

Dr. Silver’s ex-wife Alene and their children remained in the house on Slater Avenue for a handful of years after the divorce. Leading up to the divorce, Mrs. Silver had been an advocate for children’s musical education in the community. All three Silver children — Phebe, John, and Ben — were musically inclined. In 1958, Phebe and John attended the National Music Camp in Michigan for the dancing and the violin, respectively. The following year, John went once again, this time in the company of his younger brother Ben, who played the cello. Also in the late 1950s, Mrs. Silver served on the Children’s Concert committee, a part of the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra.

Dr. Silver married Edna Haun after his divorce with Alene. Because four children in addition to the three children he had with Alene are listed in Who’s Who in the World of Jewry, it seems likely that Dr. Silver and Edna had children together. He died in Los Angeles in 1993. His gravestone reads, “beloved husband, father, grandfather… To know him was to love him.”

To read our complete 2024 historic house marker report on 320 Slater Avenue, click here.