House Lust: A Pink Granite Manse Inspired by Celtic Stone Castles

The Narragansett estate was built by the eccentric textile heir and spiritualist, Joseph Peace Hazard.
Casey Nilsson

One night, Joseph Peace Hazard dreamt a druid — a Celtic priest or magician, for the uninitiated — commanded him to construct a home for no other reason than, according to his diaries, “Some one will need it — but I have never yet been able to imagine.”

Personally, I’d chalk it up to too much valerian root before bed. But Hazard, a textile heir and eccentric spiritualist, was compelled to act. Narragansett’s “Druidsdream” was completed in 1884 and, built from rough-quartered pink granite, it resembles the ancient stone castles Hazard — an avid traveller and man of leisure — visited on his many trips to Europe.

The property remained in the Hazard family until the mid-twentieth century, when it was sold to a family for seasonal use, then sold again in the 1980s and painstakingly restored by its current owners, who operated it as a bed and breakfast. Now, it’s listed with Mott and Chace Sotheby’s for $1.675 million.

There’s so much to relish here, from the ornate gardens to the intricate interior design to the two-person wire elevator in the central hall. And, like all historic homes, the place is a font of secrets: According to Hazard’s diary, “It suddenly flashed upon my mind that this house is to have a room in it that shall be carefully adapted to spiritual seances — especially for materializations (read: ghosts) — with a proper closet, cabinet, for the purpose, and a comfortable one.”

Hazard, of course, left out the exact location of the seance room, but have faith and, according to the National Register of Historic Places, check the northwest corner of the first floor.

Here’s your House Lust:

For more information on Druidsdream, contact Judy Chace of Mott and Chace Sotheby’s at 401-314-3000 or visit mottandchace.com.