Esten-Bowen house makes Register

BURRILLVILLE – The National Park Service has placed the Esten-Bowen House on Iron Mine Road on the National Register of Historic Places.
Built in 1790, the house represents Burrillville’s transition from agricultural growth at the end of the 18th century to decline and then exurban residential use in the early 20th century, the R.I. Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission said in a release announcing the listing.
Located on a 32-acre lot, the Esten-Bowen House was built by John Esten, who served on Burrillville’s first town council and in the Rhode Island General Assembly.
The wood-frame, one-and-a-half story farmhouse has a stone foundation, center chimney and clapboard siding.
The house entered a second phase of use in 1941 when it was bought by Esther H. Bowen, an Amica Insurance employee who restored it in the “Early American” taste of the mid-20th century.
“The house also is significant for its distinctive amalgamation of historic 18th-century building fabric and updates made in the 1940s in the early-American mode,” the preservation society release said.
The historic register listing gives the house special consideration during the planning of federal or federally assisted projects and makes the property eligible for federal tax benefits for historic rehabilitation projects.