by Anita Baffoni, WPRO News
A hospitality group plans to convert one of Rhode Island’s 10 Most Endangered Properties, The Wedding Cake House, into a luxurious inn.
The historical building has been vacant for years and many attempts to restore the building to prevent further deterioration have come to light. Some of the varieties of redevelopment proposals include turning the historical building on Broadway into affordable housing units, however project leader Daniel Stimler believes his plan to convert it into an upscale inn suits the neighborhood better.
“We don’t think it [affordable housing] treats the house itself with the respect it deserves. The outside will probably be maintained to a certain point but the inside will get sliced and diced and turned into to the most efficient and cheapest way to put five apartments into that space,” Stimler said of Stimler Hospitality. “That doesn’t really help the neighborhood the property exists in.”
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A KickStarter project was created to raise $500,000 to purchase the property and complete the renovations needed to turn it into the Providence Inn. Opening date of the inn is set for spring 2018.
It would be fitted with eight to twelve guest rooms and offer “complementary 390-plus square foot meeting space equipped with the state-of-the-art technology needed for presentations, trainings, or meetings — amenities with a specific appeal to today’s business travelers.”
“The transformation of the Wedding Cake House into the Providence Inn will maintain the historic character of 514 Broadway while restoring the house to its original grandeur,” Stimler Hospitality explained on their KickStarter. “The beautification of this local landmark will include much-needed renovations and landscaping improvements.”
The house was built for John Kendrick in 1867 as The Kendrick-Prentice-Tirocchi House. It later became the home of buttonhook manufacturer and street-railway tycoon George W. Prentice in the early 1880’s, according to the Providence Preservation Society.
