A4 Architecture Blog

In the Colonial Era, Newport’s waterfront served as the community’s front door and its lifeblood. There was no other way to reach Newport than by the Long Wharf that projected out into the Narragansett Bay, and which served as the entry point not just for arrivals to...

Around the world, the signs of global warming are becoming unmistakable. An arctic glacier is hanging on by the barest of margins. One third of Pakistan was flooded in the recent monsoons, and one heat wave after another has created a record amount of wildfires in the...

Newport is rich with history and historic charm visible through many beautifully designed buildings and homes. Preservation and maintenance of these buildings has fallen to the people who presently inhabit the area. Newport’s culture and history has gone through many...

Parkgate, located at 141 Pelham Street, was designed by Newport architect George Champlin Mason Sr. Sitting at the corner of Pelham and Bellevue, the site has a rich historical past. In 1844, the site was home to The Atlantic Hotel. During the Civil War, between 1861...

In 1860 George Champlin Mason designed an Italianate villa in Newport, RI for Edmund Henry Schermerhorn, who was an American and part of the old New York families of Dutch descent. Today that house is known as Chepstow. It is among a series of houses designed by Mason...

Newport is famous for many things and for many “firsts” as it was the fifth largest city in colonial America and a major and prosperous settlement before the Revolutionary War. Among the things that Newport takes great pride in for is being a place of tremendous...

Newport's architecture is some of the oldest and grandest in the country. From the Colonial Era, to early Victorian, to the Gilded Age, leading up to present times, Newport's small community has countless architectural marvels. There are more National Historic...

In 1880, when the Newport Casino was designed by McKim Mead & White and built for James Gordon Bennett, the game of lawn tennis was very young. Major Walter Clopton Wingdale had been granted a patent for the game by Queen Victoria just a few years earlier in 1874...

The Daniel Swinburne House is an extremely beautifully preserved Cottage Orné/Gothic Revival style house located in the “Catherine Kay” neighborhood of Newport. Originally built in 1863, the structure would have originally stood on a large parcel of land but as...

Winston Churchill famously stated, “First we shape our buildings and thereafter they shape us.” This keen observation was made in his argument before Parliament to properly restore the Parliament Building from the damage it sustained during the Second World War. He...