Details, Details...

After a library visit this morning I went around the Spring St. and Bellevue Ave. area with the camera looking for interesting architectural details, the idea coming from the patina-ed bronze spire on the old Sisters of Mercy chapter house (now the St. Clare Home) just across the street from the library. Once you know what you're looking for, subject matter just seems to jump up and say "Here I am!"

So to start, here's that bronze patina spire on the old Sisters of Mercy house:


Up to Bellevue Ave. and down a little to Dixon St. we find this very odd little clock and bell tower on an otherwise nondescript clapboard house. It's not now nor was it ever a church (note the weathervane rather than a cross at the peak). Somebody back in the late 1800s just decided they wanted this on their house:


At the corner of Narragansett Ave. and Bellevue Ave. is the house known as The Rockery, whose original owner decided he wanted a crenelated stone castle turret on his house, complete with ivy:


Farther down at the corner of Bellevue Ave. and Ruggles Ave. is this interesting garden fountain. The water comes out of the lion's mouth into the scallop shell, and then spills down to the larger shell at the bottom. It's turned off for the Winter at the moment.


Anyone who has ever driven on Bellevue Ave. will remember the black and gold clock at the corner of Bellevue and Victoria Ave., installed by the Newport Museum of Illustration Arts next door. Here's the clock and some of the gold leaf details:






On the Shepherd Ave. side of the Museum of Illustration is this stucco, brick, and terracotta wall artfully planted with ivy:


A little farther down Shepherd Ave. is this moon gate leading on to the grounds of Chateau Sur Mer:


Up two blocks on Bellevue is Chateau Nooga, built by a Tennessee railroad baron. It has some interesting painted cast plaster ornamentation:




Farther up Bellevue is De La Salle, which used to be a Catholic high school and has been converted to condos. It, too, has a bronze patina spire:


and an old stone sundial mounted on the wall near the front door:


and this very interesting round window up toward the eaves on the front:


And finally, just before we get back up to the Bellevue Ave. shopping district, there's a beautiful Shingle Style mansion with this very interesting gable end decoration:

And there we are, journey's end. Time to buy some groceries!