NEWPORT – Salve Regina University tonight dedicated a pair of historic buildings linked by a wooden arch in honor of a longtime trustee and community advocate for education and health care.
The buildings, originally the hennery and farm cottage for the old Vinland estate, now serve as the Salve admissions office. In a dedication ceremony at 5:30 this evening, they were officially renamed Stonor and Drexel halls, in honor of Noreen Stonor Drexel, the university said.
The halls – designed by Boston architects Peabody and Stearns, whose other local projects included Rough Point, the Rockhurst estate and the pavilion at Easton’s Beach – were restored to their original 1884 appearance thanks to a gift from the Alletta Morris McBean Charitable Trust.
The archway joining the “twin cottages” – or North and South Hall, as the shingle-style buildings used to be known – also received a new name, becoming the Alletta Morris Archway.
Stonor Drexel came to Newport during World War II and her grandmother, Sophia Augusta Brown, was a direct descendent of Nicholas Brown, founder of Brown University. In 1941 she married John R. Drexel III, whose family founded Drexel University.
The twin cottages were acquired by Salve in 1962. Their exterior restoration was honored, in 2003, with the Newport Historical Society’s Historic Preservation Award.
Salve Regina University, founded by the Sisters of Mercy to provide higher education in the Catholic tradition, was chartered by the State of Rhode Island in 1934 and welcomed its first class in 1947. Today, it has an enrollment of 2,500 students from 37 states and 17 nations. To learn more, visit www.salve.edu.
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