The Ocean House

Rhode Island's Last Victorian Hotel Falls

For 136 years, Atlantic breezes have swept across a seven-story Victorian hotel known as the Ocean House in Westerly, R.I.

Surrounded by wild rose bushes, the yellow clapboard house has lured many generations of beachgoers from the sand to its wraparound porch for a drink, a meal, or an endless ocean view.

But the last waterfront Victorian hotel on Rhode Island's mainland has seen its last season.

Its owners of 66 years, the Brankert Family, plan to sell it for about $13 million to a developer who will raze the hotel and build three or four houses on its 13-acre site.

Although two other groups placed offers to buy and renovate the hotel, the owners last week chose to sell it to Girourd Associates Inc., based in New Caanan, Conn., by the end of April.

"Unfortunately the sellers were not willing to sit down with us to talk about any reuse possibilities.

They're on a fast track for the closing," says Janet Zwolinski, executive director of Preserve Rhode Island, which last August organized a fundraising event at the Ocean House to announce that the hotel was endangered.

The hotel has been for sale since it was listed 1997 for $7.5 million.

Fire standards set last year would require immediate improvements to the hotel. The Brankerts have repainted the Ocean House its signature yellow every year but have never done a thorough restoration.

"There had been an ongoing feud between the neighbors and the owners regarding the condition of the building, and I'm sure that had a lot to do with the decision to sell it," Zwolinski says.

Preserve Rhode Island would like to meet with Girouard to discuss restoration of the Ocean House using state and local tax credits, Zwolinksi says, but the future looks bleak for the waterfront hotel.

"I wish we could do more, but unfortunately there's just too much money involved."

Just months after the demolition of Rhode Island's Ocean House hotel seemed imminent, a local man has signed on to buy and refurbish the structure. The 1868 yellow clapboard building, located in Westerly, R.I., was targeted as a development site in late March.

This week, Charles M. Royce, chief investment officer of the Manhattan-based fund management company Royce & Associates, secured an option to purchase the Ocean House from developer Richard Girouard. Now the future of the 90,000-square-foot building, originally slated by Girouard to be replaced by five luxury homes, looks bright.

"We're pleased," says Edward Sanderson, executive director of the Rhode Island Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission, which, along with the National Trust and local nonprofit Preserve Rhode Island, has campaigned to salvage the hotel. "We've spoken out in favor of a preservation solution."

Concerned by the demolition proposal, area residents and preservationists requested that Girouard rethink his initial plan.

Through multiple e-mails, letters, signed petitions, and town meetings, they suggested that he employ historic tax credits to restore the building, which, though still operating as a hotel, is in a state of severe deterioration.

Citing the financial impossibility of revamping the building on his own, Girouard appeased preservationists by placing the property it on the market;

Royce quickly stepped forward, offering an undisclosed amount to buy the structure.

In the coming months, Royce will work with town planners to create a "historic overlay zone" for the building, which will ensure its continued use as a hotel and protect it from negative alteration.

"It's my understanding that Mr. Royce will work to preserve the character-defining aspects of the Ocean House," Sanderson says.

"It'll be interesting. The place hasn't seen a cosmetic rehab in a very long time."

Situated on a 13-acre tract of land overlooking the Atlantic, the Ocean House is the only remaining Victorian-era seaside hotel on the Rhode Island.

 RIP - January 1, 2006 

Built in 1868, the Ocean House remained the only standing hotel from the glory days of the Victorian era.

Mid-way between Boston and New York, the big yellow hotel became, at the turn of the Twentieth Century, an innovative landmark physically and socially.

The Ocean House was the first resort hotel in the country to offer telephone service, which made it a target for businessmen from major cities since they could access their offices while away on vacation.

Perhaps even more importantly, the Ocean House was the first hotel to offer indoor plumbing!

As we have witnessed in the two years since the establishment officially closed her doors, the charm of the place reached well beyond Watch Hill.

Visitors, guests, staff, day trippers, bar attendees, and patrons from all over the country found their way to the big yellow hotel, removed from time, rising majestically on the bluff over Watch Hill.

Circa 1867-68, altered and enlarged 1903.

 A huge, complexly massed clapboard structure set on a hillside site overlooking Block
Island Sound.

The original portion, near Bluff Avenue, comprises two perpendicular 3-1/2-story, mansard-roof wings with modillion cornices 

At the intersection of these wings there is a 5-1/2-story tower with a modillion cornice and a tall hip roof pierced by hipped dormers.

Two
4-story, parallel wings with low-pitch hip roofs run back to the southeast from the L-shaped portion of the building, rising above the
hillside on high basements.

The outer end of each wing contains a recessed, glazed porch at first-floor level.

A columned Colonial Revival veranda, partly enclosed, runs along the southwesterly side
and northwesterly end of the building.

The west end is also fronted by a 2-story, bow-front entrance portico with colossal Corinthian columns.

The parallel, southeasterly wings were added in 1903, probably together with the veranda and portico.

The Ocean House was built for George M. Nash, whose father, lighthouse keeper Jonathan
Nash, was the first person to take seasonal boarders at Watch Hill.

The Ocean House was notable as one of the very few extent and function-
ing 19th-century resort hotels remaining in Rhode Island.

Demolished in 2006. RIP Old Buddy!