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Anyone paddling around the Jamestown,
Rhode Island area is familiar with the unusual house known
as Clingstone perched on the rocky islet close
by Conanicut Island in Narragansett Bay's East Passage. It’s a large
shingle-style house, built in 1905 by a Joseph Lovering
Wharton. He was angry the government had confscated his land
on the main island to
build Fort Wetherill, so he came to that
rocky perch, a fve-minute boat ride from the marina
Jamestown.
Its current owner, Boston architect Henry
Wood (he helped build City Hall and the
Hynes Convention Center), and his three
sons work to keep up the place he bought in
1961 for $3,600. They schedule an annual
barn-raising-like work party Memorial Day
weekend with anywhere from 50 to 100
friends showing up to help spruce things up after the
winter storms. What many do not realize is that the house entered the 21st
century many years ago by going completely green.
Local paddlers were long familiar with the huge
windmill that was a Clingstone watermark for many years. This has been replaced with a more efficient and
much smaller modern one which, together with hotovoltaic panels mounted on the
roof charge batteries in the basement to provide electricity.
Solar panels heat hot water for home use. Rain
water is collected in a cistern for water use,
and composting toilets round out the energy
savings. Many of the interior furnishings
are Goodwill and yard sale purchases. The Woods next plan
is to convert their 19-foot motorboat to fuel
from vegetable oil, recycled from nearby
restaurants. Why not a kayak?
Tamsin Venn
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