Three iterations of the Italianate in brick and wood, all built at the crest of the highest hill of the city’s most desirable neighborhood, at a time when the unobstructed views west and east were spectacular. The flushboard-clad Almy house (75 Prospect) is the most intimate in scale, much more representative of the 1840s and the early 1850s. The masonry used by Binney and Owen (79 Prospect) Houses celebrates the larger scale coming into use for substantial houses on the eve of the Civil War, both designed by Alpheus Morse, Providence’s architecture of choice in the years immediately following the expatriation and death of Thomas Tefft. At the corner of Cushing Street, these three urban seats create a marvelous tableau of mid-nineteenth-century taste and architectural ambition.
– 2003 Guide to Providence Architecture
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