EAST GREENWICH — Before she bought her house on Duke Street, Marcy Feldman lived in one of the grander houses in town, a Division Street Victorian that she and her ex-husband, a doctor, had purchased from Governor Carcieri and his wife, Sue.

After their decision to separate, “everything about my life changed,” she said. Feldman chose to leave the big house. She did want to stay in East Greenwich to make it easy for her two teenagers to travel between their parents’ homes.

Feldman, who is a nurse-practitioner, found a small gambrel-style house for sale near Greenwich Cove. It is a historic house with a plaque affixed near the front door that reads: “Elizabeth Rose c. 1870.”

According to East Greenwich town historian Bruce McGonagle, Elizabeth Seama (Phillips) Rose, who was born in 1822 and died in 1898, owned 49 Duke St. from 1864 until 1882.

Rose owned the house in her own right, which was somewhat unusual at the time, about 50 years before women were allowed to vote.

Rose paid $700 for the house in 1864, McGonagle said.

Little else is known about Rose except that she is buried near her husband, Freeman M. Rose, at Swan Point Cemetery in Providence. The Rose family has a large monument in the cemetery, indicating that “they had some money,” McGonagle said.

Like Feldman’s former house, the Rose cottage is in the Hill & Harbour historic district, a popular area in East Greenwich that is within walking distance to stores and restaurants downtown. Many of the single-family houses in Hill & Harbour have small lots, giving the neighborhood an urban flavor.

Feldman was able to buy the house for $220,000 — “about $20,000 more than I wanted to pay,” she remembered.

The house needed some work, but it was sound in its essentials. “They built these things to stand forever, and they do,” said Feldman’s friend, Stew Stewart, who has helped with all her house projects, from resurfacing the concrete floor in the basement to replacing the roof. Stewart also insulated pipes and wrapped the water heater. “They’re all little things, but they help to save energy,” he said.

Since Feldman bought the house in 2001, she has made many improvements, including her top three priorities: a new roof, an updated kitchen, and — the task closest to her heart — a perennial garden, surrounded by new fencing, in the backyard.

Feldman estimates she has spent more than $60,000 on renovations since she bought the house — the big-ticket items were $30,000 for the kitchen, $20,000 for fencing, $6,000 to paint the house, and $3,000 for the roof.

For avid gardeners such as Feldman, the yard, even more than the house, is a perpetual work in progress. Feldman’s planting has even encroached to the yard next door, with the permission of her neighbors, in the form of an herb garden. “It’s a community garden,” she said.

But renovating the kitchen was also important to Feldman, who is wry and casual but likes things organized. Here she made some interesting color choices: a sparkly green Silestone for the counters, and lavender paint for the walls. The appliances are stainless steel and the wood cabinets are painted a cream color. The cabinet drawers roll out easily on sliders and provide deep and ample storage for all her kitchen paraphernalia. The space is compact, but it is pretty and efficient.

The large windows in the kitchen let in a lot of light and give Feldman views of her garden.

“You’re looking at $20,000 worth of fence out there,” she said of the tall white gated entrance and fencing that now borders her backyard gardens. On one evening recently, her additions, including tulip magnolia, wisteria, dogwood, tree peony, dianthus and climbing roses, were budding or just promising to burst into bloom. A star magnolia and creeping phlox had already blossomed.

For her next project, Feldman said she hopes to replace the treated-wood steps and rail at the front entrance of the house with something more period-appropriate.

Soon after she moved to Duke Street, Feldman remembered, she told her daughter that she now lived “on the wrong side of the tracks,” a sardonic reference to the fact that some in East Greenwich would view her move from the Hill to the Harbour as a descent in more ways than one.

“But my daughter said, ‘We’re still on the right side of the tracks, Mom’ .”

cdunn@projo.com