Langley – King House    -   circa 1710 & 1750

     The Langley – King House is a large, two-and-a-half story, four bay gambrel-roofed house with two interior chimneys and a stunning split-pediment doorway that is original to the building.  The original 1710 house was probably a small single chimney house built by Nathaniel Langley.  The major remodeling to affect the Georgian style one sees today was done by a subsequent owner of the property, Charles Handy – probably in the mid-18th century.

     Nathaniel Langley, referred to as merchant and ship builder, is thought to have been the first owner of a house on this property.   The early date of 1710 stems from the 1882 volume by Edwin Whitefield titled, Homes of Our Forefathers.  Reasons for this date are obscure, but it is safe to say a single chimney, smaller building was built on this lot prior to 1740.  

     It appears that Langley sold the property to Charles Handy prior to 1758, perhaps in the late 1740s.  Handy was a wealthy merchant and set about expanding the property – not just the size of the house, but the land area as well.  He bought land to the west and to the north through to Mill Street and added several domestic and commercial buildings including a well-developed spermaceti factory. He also held large parcels of land from Pelham Street south between Spring Street and the now Bellevue Avenue. When he divided this property for development, streets were created and named after his sons for the most part, hence, John, William, Levin (now gone), and Thomas Streets.

     How the house evolved is difficult to detail exactly, but it would seem Handy probably made at least two expansions, the first in the late 1740s or 50s.  The split-pediment doorway, a style that dates from the mid-18th century, may have been added at this time.  The second and most significant expansion of the house, making this a true Georgian architectural gem, took place after 1758 and certainly before 1793, the year of Charles Handy’s death.  (A building with only one chimney appears on this site as late as 1758 on the Stiles map of Newport.)  Because of the severe economic downturn in Newport during and after the Revolution, it is most likely this important work was done to the house before the mid-1770s.

     While there are only four bays on the façade rather than the more balanced, more typical five, this house embodies many key Georgian architectural elements; the pediment and arched roofed dormers, the elegant split-pediment doorway, and the way the scale of the façade accommodates the greater than normal depth of the building.

     Heirs of Charles Handy signed over a mortgage deed on the house to David King, a local physician, in 1810 and in 1815 the entire extent of the Handy property was deeded to King.  David King and his heirs kept the property in their ownership through the late 1800s.  The building went down hill in the 20th century, becoming a rooming house that was added onto and run in the cheapest fashion until purchased by NRF in 1969.  At the time it had sixteen apartments ranging in rent from $32.00 to $76.00 per month and others for lesser amounts by the week.  Amazingly, much of the original woodwork, mantles, and trim remained in some of the rooms.   

     The wonderful split pediment doorway on the Langley – King House was donated to NRF by a descendant of the King family.  It had been removed by family members sometime in the late 19th century when the house had begun to deteriorate.  When NRF was in the process of restoring the house in the early 1970s, a King descendant contacted the Foundation and offered the doorway as a donation.  The lovely Georgian doorway came out of seventy or eighty years of storage in excellent condition and fit the tracings of nail holes revealed when the shingles on the façade of the house were removed down to the original planking!  The last of the King family owners had also in the late 19th century removed the original brownstone steps and wrought iron railing, taking these items with them when they relocated to Gibbs Avenue and placing them for use in a back garden of their new property.  The Newport Restoration Foundation purchased the steps and railing and relocated them again, this time - along with the doorway - back to their original home on Pelham Street

     The Langley-King House is on its original site.  The house was purchased by NRF in 1969 and restored by in 1970-71.