The Stone House Club, a 15-room, 11,000-square-foot inn built by the architect commissioned for Little Compton’s Sakonnet Point breakwater and rumored to have been constructed with stones stolen from that project, has been sold to Goosewing Hotels & Resorts.
Last week, Goosewing co-founder Craig Pishotti announced plans to finalize the $5.4-million purchase of the 171-year-old building by Oct. 1. Designs of Goosewing’s renovation – including rebuilding first- and second-floor porches and a rooftop widow’s walk – aren’t yet finalized.
“We’re currently working on our designs, and we will start renovation ideally on Nov. 1,” said Pishotti. “So we’ll be under construction through November, through the winter, with intent to open the doors during the summer of 2008.”
The interior renovations are to include increasing the size of the 12 guest rooms and building a private bathroom for each.
“Certainly with the main building being granite, you don’t have to do a lot. That building will be there forever,” said Pishotti. “But the interior renovations will be extensive. There will be elements that we will preserve because we have nominated it for the National Register of Historic Places.”
For longer than half her life, Margaret Tirpaeck has been devoting her working time to the inn. Her parents, Tod and Virginia Moore, have owned the inn for 32 years – in the 1990s they added Tirpaeck and her husband, Peter, to an ownership trust.
“It will be tough” to let it go, Tirpaeck said. “But at the same time I’m ready to let go. It’s been a great experience, but I’ve done it enough now that I’m ready to move on.”
Open from March through December, the inn welcomes about 450 overnight visitors each year and draws more business through the Tap Room, a basement-level restaurant and former Prohibition-era speakeasy. Because it’s within 200 feet of a church, the inn had been forced to become a private club to retain a liquor license – a ruling that Little Compton town councilors overturned in August when they agreed to a full liquor license for Goosewing.
“I’m going to miss the satisfaction that I get from seeing The Stone House satisfy a variety of needs in the community,” said Tod Moore. “First of all, we’re a very good restaurant. We provide the only housing in town besides a few bed and breakfasts. We provide the community with a place for celebrations – from wedding receptions to church gatherings.”
Little Compton assessed the two buildings – the inn is accompanied on the three-acre parcel by a 7,000-square-foot former barn – and property at $3,594,200. Along with renovations to the barn – adding two guest rooms – the Moores made significant changes to the inn when they bought in 1975.
“The owners ahead of us were basically unable to make a success of The Stone House and were in fact closing it,” said Tod Moore. “So we bought it in a state of at least ancientness, if not disrepair.”
This will be the second project for Goosewing Hotels & Resorts, which is based in Little Compton, and the first for which it will retain ownership. Currently the company is restoring The Weekapaug Inn, a 48-room historic inn in Westerly. Pishotti said the company’s expertise in historic restoration and renovation isn’t common among hotel developers.
“Our business model is pretty unique, in that there aren’t a lot of people who are doing what we’re doing,” he said.
Goosewing also designed a Newport waterfront hotel, but, for now, Pishotti is staying quiet on that project – although he said the company has an identified a potential site. •
