Yet another pedimented-end-gable-roof, 3-bay-façade, side-hall-plan house (compare with 101 Congdon and 104 Bowen Streets), with later 19th-century additions (notably the 3-story tower emerging from the south elevation), this has an interesting history that hints at the complexity of real-estate speculation and development in the economically tempestuous mid-19th century.
The house was built on land that Niles Bierragaard Schubarth (1818-1889), Providence’s first landscape architect, leased from Eliza Soule in 1847. Shortly after that transaction, Thomas A. Jenckes built and owned the house on the leased land. Ownership of land and building remained separate until 1863, when George Owen purchased the entire property. Throughout the house’s early years, none of the house’s owners seems to have lived here. In 1865, Owen sold the house to Sarah P. Hoard, wife of manufacturer John W. Hoard. Placing the property in the wife’s name was most commonly done to protect the husband’s business investments, usually most important when he had unincorporated interests in a company. Mr. Hoard seems to have been associated, at least by the 1880s, with the Fall River Iron Works, located on South Main Street in what is now the Bayard Ewing Building at Rhode Island School of Design, now the home of the school’s architecture department. The house remained in Hoard-family ownership until late 1927, when Sarah and John’s son Frederick deeded it to the American Humane Education Society, a Boston-based animal-rescue organization. He seems to have retained life tenancy, for after his death in May 1932, the Society sold the house. It has since remained privately owned.
— 2006 Festival of Historic Houses Guidebook