College Hill house with Lovecraft connection bought by Paolino

THE 1801 HALSEY HOUSE on Prospect Street in Providence has been purchased by Paolino Properties. The Federal-style mansion was the setting for the H.P. Lovecraft novel "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward." / COURTESY PAOLINO PROPERTIES
THE 1801 HALSEY HOUSE on Prospect Street in Providence has been purchased by Paolino Properties. The Federal-style mansion was the setting for the H.P. Lovecraft novel "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward." / COURTESY PAOLINO PROPERTIES

PROVIDENCE – A stately College Hill mansion with a literary connection has been sold to Paolino Properties.

Halsey House, at 140 Prospect St., served as a setting in H.P. Lovecraft’s short novel “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.”

It sold for $2 million, according to a spokeswoman for Paolino Properties, which is led by former Providence Mayor Joseph R. Paolino Jr. The previous owner is listed on city property records as Beth Phillips Weiss.

The house was built in 1801 by Col. Thomas Lloyd Halsey, a shipping merchant and a French consular agent in Rhode Island during the Revolutionary War, according to Paolino Properties.

- Advertisement -

The Federal-style brick mansion, now a four-unit apartment building, covers 10,822 square feet and is on a corner lot in College Hill.

In a brief interview, Paolino said he plans to renovate the spacious apartments as luxury units that maintain and reflect the historical character of the building.

Lovecraft used the house as the home and birthplace of his title character in the short novel he wrote in 1927, which was published posthumously. Brown University has the original manuscript.

No posts to display