The Lyman Cook House at the corner of Harris Avenue and Lyman Street delivers a fine example of an Italianate-style mini-mansion in the heart of Woonsocket’s North End.

The striking dwelling, circa 1846, has a strong two-and-one-half-story presence atop a small hill. It boasts a front façade of a porch with a flat-roof and slate floor that runs along the width of the house. The main entrance overhang has elaborate columns, decorative detail work under the eaves, a fan light, pilasters and side lights.

There are broken pediments above the second-floor oversized windows, and brackets under that floor’s eaves. The bay window on the side of the house has an arch, and at the tip of the arch is a piece of keystone molding.

“When you look at it, you can imagine it could be in Tuscany,” said Rene Marcel Lafayette, a former Providence County high sheriff and currently a high school history teacher. He and his wife, Donna, no longer need so much interior space, about 5,500 square feet of it, and they are asking $515,000 for the four-bedroom house attached to two four-room apartments. There’s an unattached three-car garage.

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Walk through the House of the Week

The interior of 246 Harris Ave., which sits on three-quarters of an acre, delivers many vintage elements, most notably a formal staircase with a mahogany banister and swirl-like scroll work on the outside of each stair. The base of the banister in the foyer has an ivory mortgage button (where the owner would roll up the mortgage and store it inside the base of the banister).

“I put in a red carpet in the foyer to make a statement,” Rene Lafayette says. “I believe that when you have guests, you should roll out the red carpet.”

The hardwood floors throughout both levels of the dwelling feature double bands of mahogany inlays. There are three formal marble fireplace mantels, crown molding, ceiling medallions, wainscoting, chair rails, lots of over-sized windows and 12-foot-high ceilings. The windows on the ground floor all have decorative overhangs adorned with curtains that hang to the floor.

The office/library on the main floor facing the front yard has interior pocket shutters that cover the windows. “It keeps the heat in on cold days,” says Donna Lafayette, demonstrating how the shutters pull out from the wall and close over the windows.

Rene Lafayette says that the office/library is one of his favorite rooms. “That room reflects my personality,” says Lafayette, who bought 246 Harris Ave. 16 years ago from relatives. (The house has been in the Lafayette family since the 1970s.) “The office has become part of my daily life.”

Behind the library is the den, which has a pellet stove and signature period moldings and bi-fold hanging shutters (not pocket ones) over the windows. Across the foyer from the library and den is a living room that the Lafayettes call the music room.

Rene Lafayette, a history buff, had the room painted the same color, soft pink, as the grand ballroom in the Livadia Palace in Yalta. The Russian royal family used it as their summer residence at the turn of the 20th century, he says. During World War II, the palace was the setting for the so-called Yalta Conference, a meeting of the “big three” world leaders Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill.

“Because Livadia’s ballroom was a place where you would formally receive a visitor and I’m a history buff, I wanted the room to have that formal of a feel,” notes Rene Lafayette. “This house has been the setting of many parties; a few were black tie.”

The dining room, behind the living room, has a full bathroom with a vintage black-and-white basket-weave tile floor and black-and-white subway tiles on the walls. The small kitchen off the dining room has a black-and-white linoleum floor and the counters are covered in stainless steel.

The back hallway houses a half-bath, and access to the cellar, the back staircase and an enclosed porch. The Lafayettes say that they use the porch for three seasons.

The second floor has four large bedrooms and two full bathrooms. There are hardwood floors throughout, and all have double bands of mahogany inlays. The hallway features a pull-down ironing board and a large linen closet. The third floor has three finished rooms and storage under the eaves.

The original owner, Lyman Cook, born in Cumberland in 1803, has been credited with playing a major role in Woonsocket’s industrial development. He and his brother, Willis, established a foundry and machine shop on Main Street.

The Italianate-style house with living space of about 5,500 square feet, four bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms and two attached four-room apartments at 246 Harris Ave. in Woonsocket is for sale for $515,000. Michele Carboni, of Century 21, (401) 568-6111, ext. 337, michele.carboni@century21.com, has the listing. An open house is scheduled for tomorrow from 1 to 3 p.m.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 Faye Zuckerman, real estate writer, 75 Fountain St., Providence, RI 02902; fax (401) 277-8250; or e-mail pjhomes@projo.com. For more information, call (401) 277-7333.

fzuckerm@projo.com