This is one of the city’s most storied and architecturally impressive houses. It is one of a remarkable number of large houses financed through maritime activity, when Providence was an important port in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the rest of them located down the west slope of College Hill on or near Benefit Street. Halsey (1751-1838) had amassed a significant fortune by 1800 when he built this house, which originally was brick only on its north and south ends. The brick front wall features deep semi-elliptical bows flanking the Doric 1-story entrance porch; bowed walls were commonly used in England by the Brothers Adam and in Boston by Charles Bulfinch but were rare in Providence. The bowed walls correspond to bows in the front parlors of the house, which has a high level of interior finish appropriate to a house of this scale and importance.
The house entered local legend at the end of the 19th century. Halsey’s son, Col. Thomas Lloyd Halsey (1776-1855) traveled for business to South America, where the lifelong bachelor fathered a daughter whose son later laid claim to his grandfather’s estate in a court suit that set Providence tongues wagging. Whether for the wealth of its first occupant or the salaciousness of its later history, the house aroused the interest of Providence author H.P. Lovecraft, who made it the home of the protagonist of his novella “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.”
— 2006 Festival of Historic Houses Guidebook
A swaggering Federal house with a history to match. Bow fronts are typically found in Federal houses, especially in Boston and Philadelphia, but they are rarity here. The curving bays flanking the center entrance topped by a Palladian window are almost too expansive and seem to squeeze what would otherwise be an ample entrance. The house originally had a wood front, so what we see is a later remodeling, but probably still within the Federal era. Thomas Lloyd Halsey (1751-1838), a successful China Trader, built this probably at the height of his career. His son, Col Thomas Lloyd Halsey (1776-1855), may have added the bays when he assumed ownership of the house. The younger Halsey’s business travels took him to South America, where the lifelong bachelor fathered a daughter whose son later laid claim to his grandfather’s estate in a court suit that set Providence tongues wagging. In the twentieth century, this house was a key plot element in H.P Lovecraft’s novella “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.” Lovecraft himself lived for a time nearby on Barnes Street.
— 2003 Guide to Providence Architecture
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