Carnagie Abbey Club, Portsmouth, R.I.

August 5, 2003

PORTSMOUTH, R.I. — It’s a rare developer who can take 350 acres of land owned by an order of monks and turn it into a championship-level golf course and exclusive private club without heavily disturbing the site.
Not only is Peter de Savary such a person, but to further enhance the historic feel of his property, he’s called in a descendent of the land’s first owners – the Narragansett Indians – to do much of the stone work for his fourth such project, Carnegie Abbey on Narragansett Bay.
The British-born de Savary developed a reputation for creating environmentally sensitive private golf clubs. When he signed a 99-year lease in 1998 with the Benedictine Order, which owns the property, he obtained a site rich in history.
Originally populated by the Narragansett Indians, the land, which adjoins Narragansett Bay near Portsmouth, was later the site of the Revolutionary War battle of Rhode Island.
In August 1778, a force of American soldiers backed by the French fleet planned to drive the British occupation force out of Newport. When a hurricane put the French out of commission, the patriots fought the British to a draw, each side losing some 50 men before the Americans withdrew.
In commemoration of the bloodshed, the locals rechristened one of the creeks crossing the property Bloody Run Creek. Along with that bit of history, the site also includes the foundations of four old homesteads and their outbuildings, as well as three cemeteries.
To develop the course itself, de Savary brought in designer Donald Steel, who’s known for his creation of Scottish-style golf courses – links that make use of the existing terrain, rather than employing extensive grading and reshaping of the landscape.
To create the club’s other amenities, including equestrian and tennis centers and a spa, de Savary turned to a Newport, R.I.-based firm, Newport Collaborative Architects Inc. The firm is one of the largest in Rhode Island and won some 30 design awards during the past two decades.
John Douglas, the club secretary, says the developer was also very interested in utilizing area talent for the project.
“Our founder thought it was important to use the talents of the local architects and contractors,” he says. “We’re proud that our architect is based on the island, and our general contractor (Behan Brothers, also of Newport) is based on the island. The company that did the excavating is based on the island. Whenever possible we tried to utilize the talents of our neighbors.”
The charge given to the architects, Douglas adds, was to create something inspired after the great 19th century vacation camps found in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York.
“We wanted a wonderful, rambling cedar-single-sided look that’s very much in keeping with this part of the world,” says Douglas. “We wanted to be really proud of what we can show off.”
John Grosvenor, a principal with Newport Collaborative Architects, has the responsibility of taking that charge and making it a reality. Now five years into the project, three of the club’s main structures have been completed, with work on developing another 100-acre adjacent parcel (owned outright by de Savary) scheduled by 2006.
“The first project was called the Lookout,” Grosvenor explains. “It has a majestic fieldstone fireplace with four arches in a circular form that comes up and through the building. That’s our pro shop.”
It was followed, three years ago, by a 12,000-square-foot structure called the Golf Lodge. Initially the club’s golf house, it has more recently been converted into five residential units. The club’s most-recent construction project is the permanent golf house that opened in May of this year with 78,000 ft² of space.
“It’s really beautiful,” Grosvenor says. “It has a fieldstone fireplace in the lobby and cast stone fireplaces that we’re using in the member accommodations. There are 22 of those, priced from $1 million to $3.5 million.”
The man most responsible for crafting the two huge fireplaces, as well as those in the individual units, the project’s entrance and other stonework is Ted Brown, a partner in the Charlestown, R.I.-based Brown Stone Masonry with his wife, Lori, and his father, Ellison “Sonny” Brown Jr.
The Narragansett Indians have a long tradition of stonework, and Ted Brown explains that it’s a trade that has employed several generations of his family. His grandfather, Ellison “Tarzan” Brown Sr., originally founded Brown Stone Masonry and a number of his cousins work for the company as needed.
It was also a family connection that helped the Browns land the Carnegie Abbey work.
“One of my husband’s cousins is the tribal preservation office,” explains Lori Brown. “He oversees tribal burial grounds, and before anyone can build a big project he needs to make sure there are no Indian burial sites around where a project will be built. He was the person who introduced Ted to Peter de Savary.”
Given de Savary’s commitment to using local talent, Douglas, the club’s secretary, says it’s not surprising that the Browns were chosen to do the stonework.
“He really thought it would make perfect sense with the harmony of the land and the historical significance of the Narragansetts to incorporate their stonework and have them involved in the project,” Douglas says. “Obviously, the Browns have longer and closer family ties to this island than any of us.”
“Because of the history of the site, de Savary liked that element of it,” says Eric Watne, a project manager for Behan Brothers. “Brown does stunning work. The work at the Lookout and at the Golf House is incredible.”
Ted Brown is a bit more modest.
“We did the entranceway for them, and once they saw that we got the rest of the work,” he says. “That’s when we started with the other projects.”
Lori Brown says that the company started work at the club in January 2000. The entryway incorporated stone native to the property. Because the developer was also using it for traditional stonewalls around the development, subsequent work required importing Pennsylvania fieldstone.
“The closest to what was there was Pennsylvania fieldstone, and we had it shipped in by the pallet,” says Ted Brown. “I’m always working with different stone, but we had to match what they had there.”
Although Brown and his crew, which sometimes numbered as many as nine, applied stone as a veneer on the building foundations, as well as piers and pillars in the newly opened Golf House, he agrees that the crowning touch of the project – so far – has been the large fireplaces at the Lookout and in the Golf House.
The Lookout fireplace is circular and 25 feet tall, and Ted Brown says he enjoyed that part of the project because he gave considerable input on its design.
“A lot of times they’ll give me the dimensions, but I’ll say that I need this much room,” he says. “A couple days before we started, Peter (de Savary) came to me and said he wanted a six-foot-round one. I said, ‘If we’re going to do that, I want this opening size.’ I sketched it out on a napkin and he said that I should do what I wanted. I pretty much went from there.”
Ted and Sonny Brown and a helper did most of the work on the circular fireplace with its four arches and octagonal chimney. Douglas, the club’s secretary, says that not only are the fireplaces functional, but de Savary felt they would be a key design element based on his experience with a project he developed in South Carolina. He says the Lookout’s fireplace does provide a certain tone to the entire club.
“It’s a much-talked-about piece,” Douglas says. “It’s the first time people get a sense of the stonework at the club, and it’s quite impressive. Everyone who arrives at the property checks in at the Lookout, and it’s impossible to go by unnoticed.”
The same could probably said for the Golf House fireplace, which Douglas calls, “definitely a focus of conversation.”
“As you enter the formal entry into our great room, front and center is a much-larger fireplace,” he explains. “It’s two-sided and 45’ high.”
It’s also large enough that the 6’-tall Brown was able to climb inside it to work.
Architect Grosvenor describes the look of all the stonework as, “a horizontal thin set, almost a dry set stone.”
Brown who works with a hammer and hand chisels, says it’s more a matter of just choosing, shaping and laying the stone to his purposes.
“It’s like a big puzzle, but I have a hammer, so I can cheat a little,” he says.
The Browns have worked on other jobs besides Carnegie Abbey, but the company keeps being called back in as other parts of the project progress – such as for the fireplaces in the individual condo units at the Golf Lodge and the Golf House.
They also expect to be involved as the architect and contractor move toward the final part of the project on that additional 100-acre site. It will see the development of a yacht club and marina and some 40 individual lots, as well as the renovation of a wire-manufacturing plant once owned by Kaiser Aluminum that will be converted into 35 condominium units and 15 hotel-type suites.
In the meantime, Brown says he’s enjoyed his experience with the Carnegie Abbey Club very much.
“They really gave me the freedom to build what I wanted,” he says. “A lot of the smaller jobs don’t really let me be creative. There, they gave me the go-ahead to change the things I wanted to change. I brought up things I thought would make it better, and they let me do what I wanted.”

Customer: Carnegie Abbey Club, Portsmouth, R.I.
Designer: Newport Collaborative Architects Inc., Newport, R.I.
Contractor: Behan Brothers, Newport, R.I.
Masonry Subcontractor: Brown Stone Masonry, Charlestown, R.I.