The Old House and the Sea

THREE GENERATIONS ON THE ROCKS A blended composite of photos of Clingstone provides a panoramic view

By PENELOPE GREEN

“THIS house is always going to have rough edges,” said Henry Wood, resting his frayed sneakers on a splintered pillar. “It’s never going to look like the Breakers.”

It was another indecently beautiful day at Clingstone — a faded, shingled and, yes, very rough 103-year-old mansion set on a rock in Narragansett Bay — and Mr. Wood, its owner, was musing on what the place is not: specifically, that grander turn-of-the century folly in nearby Newport, a limestone-and-gilt palace built by a Vanderbilt in 1895.

But in fact it’s the rough edges and salt-encrusted surfaces that Mr. Wood, a 79-year-old Boston architect, treasures most about Clingstone. For nearly half a century, he has kept them (more or less) intact, and the house standing, through his own hard labor and that of others. He and a crew of family and friends who share his passion for the place’s “deep bohemian funk,” as Nicholas Benson, a stone carver from Newport, put it, have dedicated their time and skills (plumbing and wiring experience are always particularly welcome) to keeping the place from slipping into the water forever.

In 1961, when Mr. Wood bought the house with his ex-wife Joan, who is also an architect, for $3,600, it had been empty for two decades. All of its 65 windows were smashed, and its slate roof was wide open to the sky. Vandals had been creative: on the second floor, the interior shingles were embedded with marbles (they still are), which had been blasted there by some sort of firearm.

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