A second bedroom on the second floor.

Providence’s only row of townhouses originally owned by a single family sits in the heart of the East Side on Cooke Street.

Built in the 1860s by sisters who married brothers with the last name of Draper, they were designed as four three-story attached houses so each could have one unit to lease. The dwellings became known as Draper Row.

“Return on investment was clearly a high priority for those obviously thrifty Yankee ladies,” describes a Providence Preservation Society publication. The brochure depicts the dwellings “as an odd bit of Belgravia [a tony section of London] dropped here from the sky.”

In the 1950s, two architects took over the houses as a live-and-lease investment, and they removed many of the high Victorian Gothic details then deemed unfashionable. The preservation publication reads, “They [the architects] simplified the structures.”

Gallery

Walk through the House of the Week

But several of the defining Gothic details remain on the exterior, including textured brick work between the rectangular bay windows, drip moldings to protect the bays from rain water, and a one-story front entrance overhang with two columns, pilasters and a transom. There are raised-panel double-front doors that lead to a small vestibule and another set of double raised-panel doors with another transom into the main hallway of the house.

One of the four townhouses, 10 Cooke St., is for sale for $1.35 million. The owner Marguerite Chadwick, an artist, is relocating to Maine.

The interior of her townhouse — with five bedrooms and more than 4,000 square feet of living space — is ornamented with the original molding, a grand staircase, nearly 15-feet-high ceilings, hardwood floors and four fireplaces.

“I love the height of the ceilings,” says Chadwick, who has lived there for some eight years. “All of the families who lived here left the interior true to its Victorian self. They never touched the extra details.”

Unique to Chadwick’s townhouse (and missing from the others) are the top two levels. One is a windows-all-around art studio with maple floors and French doors opening to a small deck; the other is accessed via a staircase in the studio, and it leads to a rooftop heaven — a giant deck with a small wet bar with refrigerator at the top of the staircase.

Slide open the glass doors and you step onto the fenced-in patio with weathered-deck flooring, an awning over an eating area and lots of container gardens. It has a 360-degree view of the East Side.

“I love it up here. It’s much cooler then on the lower levels,” she said. “This is my garden and backyard.”

Besides her roof-top oasis and studio, Chadwick says, the kitchen ranks up there as a favorite spot. Renovated in 2000, she kept the original wavy glass-front, floor-to-ceiling cabinets and shelves. She covered the counters in Corian, and put in a giant center island, which seats about six. It has a linoleum floor.

“I planned the kitchen to be functional,” she says. “I wanted it to be a place where I could talk to guests while preparing food.”

The dining and living room and hallway have hardwood floors. Their ceilings are the ones that reach about 15 feet, and the living room has the rectangular bay window. The fireplace, which is gas, has a detailed wood mantel with dentil molding.

Double doors close both rooms off from each other and the hallway, which has a half bath. The door into the kitchen from the hallway has a transom.

In addition to a grand curved staircase with turned spindles and hardwood banister, the house has a back staircase to the second level. The second and third floors are air-conditioned.

The formal stairs have a niche –– about 3-feet-by-3-feet. It is called a coffin corner. Prior to hospitals, Chadwick says, “people died on the second floor. That’s how they solved the challenge of getting the coffin down the stairs.”

The master bathroom is completely tiled floor-to-ceiling. It has a display of decorative texture tiles over the tub as well as radiant heat, a pedestal sink and built-ins all around the sink.

The master suite boasts a bay window, a curved wall where a sink probably once was and closets on either side of the curve. There’s a fireplace as well as signature period molding.

Two other bedrooms are on the second level; the laundry room (with a toilet) is there too as is another full bathroom.

The third level has pine wood floors, which are less fancy than the oak on the first two levels. She said, “The level was probably for the help.”

There are two bedrooms and a sewing room as well as a bathroom with a shower and sink; the toilet and another sink are on the other side of the stairs.

The basement level has three rooms, and houses the one-car attached garage accessed via an old-fashioned carriage house-like door that slides open via a weight. (There’s another parking space in the parking lot. The garage has a sink.)

The townhouse at 10 Cooke St., Providence, is for sale for $1.35 million. It has five bedrooms, gas heat, air-conditioning, one-car attached garage, four fireplaces and rooftop deck. The taxes are $8,750. Padric M. Meagher at (401) 751-7619 or gonswimmin@cox.net, has the listing.How to submit a House of the Week

A different House of the Week appears each Saturday in the projoHomes section of The Providence Journal. The feature tells the story of the house and the people who have lived in it. If you would like us to consider a house for sale as a subject of this news feature, send a photo, information about the house and why it is of interest, to Christine Dunn or Andy Smith, 75 Fountain St., Providence, RI 02902; fax (401) 277-8250; or e-mail pjhomes@projo.com. For more information, call Dunn: (401) 277-7913 or Smith: (401) 277-7485.

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