Whitehall, Berkeley Avenue, Middletown, Newport County, RI

Significance: The philosopher George Berkeley, Dean of Derry and later Bishop of Coyne, intended to establish a college in Bermuda but his ship was blown off-course and he settled, instead, in Newport. There, he refashioned a farmhouse into a two-story, hipped roof affair with a pedimented doorway. The double door was flanked by Ionic pilasters. Funding for the college never materialized and so Berkeley left his property (and library) to Yale. Whitehall was briefly known as Vaux Hall and by the 1870s had fallen into disrepair. Charles McKim published a photograph of the building in 1874, an image that eventually peaked the interest of the Colonial Dames who restored Whitehall around 1897 or 1899. Architects Norman Morrison Isham (mid 1930s) and John Hutchins Cady (mid century) led later restoration efforts. (See Buildings of Rhode Island, pp. 509-11)
Survey number: HABS RI-52
Building/structure dates: 1729 Initial Construction
Building/structure dates: ca. 1897 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: 1936 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: 1947-1950 Subsequent Work
National Register of Historic Places NRIS Number: 70000016