PROVIDENCE – Brown University has sold the historic Robert Lippitt House in College Hill, a gift of real estate received by the private institution late last year.
The sale of the mid-19th century house, as well as a carriage house on the property, resulted in a net gift of $1.1 million for the university, according to a spokesman. The proceeds will be divided between the university’s annual fund and the president’s discretionary fund, which can be directed to financial aid for students, research and other purposes.
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The Robert Lippitt House, at 193 Hope St., sold for $1.3 million, while the carriage house, at 195 Hope St., sold for $525,000, according to Brian Clark, a Brown spokesman. Brown had purchased the carriage house itself, with the intention of selling the house and carriage house together.
The buyers were Jim DeRentis, a sales associate for Residential Properties, Ltd., and Brett Smiley, who is chief of staff to Gov. Gina M. Raimondo.
The transactions closed on Monday. Although Brown, as a nonprofit institution, held the property for some six months, it continued to pay city property tax on the house, Clark said, because it was not being used for educational purposes.
A gift of real estate is somewhat unusual. In Brown’s case, the house was transferred by owner Faster, LLC, on Dec. 30, 2016 with the intention that it be sold to benefit the university and returned to use as a single-family home. Clark identified the donor as “members of the extended Brown community” but otherwise did not name them.
Rhode Island corporation records indicate Faster LLC, based in Wilmington, Del., is an owner of rental real estate. It owned both the three-story Robert Lippitt House, and the smaller carriage house.
The Robert Lippitt House has six bedrooms, a private dressing room, a media room and a large eat-in kitchen, according to Residential Properties Ltd., which represented both buyer and seller in the sale. DeRentis served as the buyer’s agent, while sales associate Kira Greene was the listing agent.
The house is the 18th single-family home that has sold for more than $1 million on the East Side of Providence this year, according to Residential Properties.
The brick, hip-roofed house was built in 1854 for Lippitt by the architect Thomas A. Tefft, and is of the few remaining examples of his work, according to a nomination for the Hope Street Historic District. The house features Italianate details, according to the description, and was among several homes built along Hope Street by the Lippitt family in the 1850s and 1860s.
The carriage house, which was built in 1910, also was designed by Tefft.
Mary MacDonald is a PBN staff writer. Email her at MacDonald@PBN.com, or you can follow her on Twitter @MaryF_MacDonald.
