2020 Rhody Award Winners

Thoughtful stewardship, planning, and a dedicated team of craftsmen guided the restoration of this simple village church. Original windows, doors, and plaster walls were repaired; decorative elements, including wood-grained pews and a newly discovered hand-painted border above the chair rail were restored; and historic gas light fixtures were electrified. Once a target of vandalism, the building is now protected with an alarm, carefully hidden so as not to detract from the unassuming beauty of the church’s historic character.

Southeast Light has stood guard along the bluffs of Block Island for 145 years, in a beautiful but harsh seaside environment. By the 2010s, saltwater had taken a toll, particularly on the cast iron and masonry structural system – the restoration of which required a painstaking process of disassembly, repairing as much original material as possible, recasting damaged elements, and reassembly. Cast iron deck plates, stairs, railings, doors, and the ladder to the lantern gallery were replicated based on original drawings. Laser scanning and a 3D-printed sandcasting system provided the technology. This meticulous restoration ensures that Southeast Light will continue to stand proud for decades to come.

This quintessential Italianate villa provides a gracious meeting place for Newport seniors after a full window repair project. The house has been used as a senior center since 1968, and the historic windows had become inoperable over the decades. This project is a preservation success story: facing inoperable windows, the City of Newport initially reached out to RIHPHC about replacing all of the windows. With the help of a State Preservation Grant (SPG), the city reversed course and made the decision to invest in restoration of the original sash. The successful project represents the city’s investment in historic preservation and the restoration of this National Historic Landmark building and fixture in the Newport community.

The restoration of this 1941 Worcester Diner was a ten-year labor of love for owner Jonathan Savage. He relocated an abandoned diner from Connecticut and installed it outside Lorraine Mills in Pawtucket. Input from diner experts on the original configuration and where to source finishes and fixtures guided general contractor Joe Pacheco in restoring this streamlined beauty. Operated by experienced restaurateur Mike Arena, Miss Lorraine is open for business. Hot coffee and friendly service in a gorgeous setting—a recipe for success.

The State of Rhode Island stewards the historic State House (1895-1904; McKim, Mead & White) for the people of Rhode Island. Between July and December 2019, the State invested in repairs, upgrades, and restorations in both the second floor House and Senate chambers and the third floor public galleries. The comprehensive project utilized historic photos and primary documents to replace non-original draperies in the legislative chambers with historically-appropriate replicas and a protective barrier, procure new chairs based on the historic originals, repaint both chambers with historic colors, restore skylights and their cast-iron protective covers, upgrade electrical and sound systems, and many more improvements. The project combined historic preservation with modern upgrades to ensure the people’s chambers remain a functional part of state government.

It took $40 million and 15 years to transform a massive turn-of-the-century textile plant into a mixed-use destination in Pawtucket. Using Federal and State preservation tax credits, the developers carried out a multiphase rehabilitation that began on the Main Street side with the creation of art studios, professional offices, commercial spaces, night clubs, restaurants, and light industrial units and the restoration of the historic Breaktime bowling alley. The dynamic mix of tenants attracted an exciting attraction—the weekly Farm Fresh RI’s Winter Farmers Market—and provided the momentum for installing 149 residential loft-style apartments in the five-story mill on the Esten Street side.

Mary Anthony was hired as the first executive director of the 1772 Foundation in 2003. In the years since, she has had an outsized impact on the preservation movement in Rhode Island and beyond. The foundation provides critical bricks-and-mortar grants to historic sites; in the last six years alone, 191 projects across Rhode Island have received nearly $2.5 million in funding. Mary has been instrumental in expanding the 1772 Foundation’s scope to also include supporting revolving funds, such as those at Preserve Rhode Island and the Providence Revolving Fund; promoting real estate training for preservation professionals through a partnership with the National Development Corporation and the National Trust for Historic Preservation; and breaking down the division between building preservation and land conservation by making grants to organizations like the Norman Bird Sanctuary, South Kingstown Land Trust, and others. Rhode Island’s historic buildings and landscapes would be much the poorer without Mary’s visionary leadership.

Henry Brown is a historian, writer, advocate, and community leader in Warwick. Henry has dedicated his entire life to the preservation and celebration of Warwick’s history, first learning about the city’s history in an elementary school class in 1939. In the over eighty years that followed, Henry has been intimately involved in the development of the Pawtuxet Village Association, the Gaspee Days Committee and Parade, the Warwick Historical Society, and The Bridge newspaper. Henry has collected extensive historical documents and artifacts about all aspects of Warwick history, as well as the venerable Brown family and their Spring Greene Farm, where Henry still lives today. Henry’s research and collection form a large part of the Warwick Historical Society’s collections, and he has also published extensively on Warwick history. A beloved figure in the city, Henry is a Warwick institution unto himself.