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Rhode Island Rhode Island
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 About New England’s Foliage
Every autumn throughout New England, diminishing length of daylight and falling temperatures induce trees to shed billions of tons of leaves. Preceding this preparation for winter the trees present a spectacular color show. Leaves that have been green all summer turn to brilliant shades of yellow, orange, and red.
These color changes are caused by transformations in leaf pigments, primarily the green pigment chlorophyll. During summer, the leaves of trees are producing sugar from carbon dioxide and water by the workings of light and chlorophyll. Chlorophyll causes the leaves to appear green.
The shorter days and cool nights of autumn set off changes in the tree. One is the growth of a corky membrane at the base of the leaf stem, which interrupts the flow of nutrients into the leaf. This stops the production of chlorophyll in the leaf, and the green color of the leaf fades, allowing the reds, oranges and yellows to burst forth. The best autumn colors are produced when dry, sunny days are followed by cool, dry nights.
Color may begin to appear in isolated spots in far northern New England the first week in September. Typically, the color change begins at the higher elevations and in the northern part of the region mid-September and moves southward through mid-to-late October, ending in southern New England coastal areas at the end of October.
Visitors who travel to see our spectacular foliage are known as, “Leaf-Peepers.” While on your excursion do stop at country stores, orchards, local restaurants and shops. We have suggested some routes for you to drive. We also suggest that you try some backroads. Get a local map, and don’t worry about getting lost. You’ll always bump into a main road sooner or, hopefully, later.
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Blithewold Mansion, Gardens & Arboretum
101 Ferry Road / Route 114
Bristol, RI 02809 
Phone: 401-253-2707
This 45-room mansion was built in 1908 as the summer home of coal magnate Augustus Van Wickle. The property features gardens, and arboretum on 33 acres overlooking Narragansett Bay.
Hours: The mansion and gardens are open April 16 through Columbus Day for self-guided tours, Wednesday through Sunday (and most Monday holidays) 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The grounds and gardens are open year-round, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Fee charged.
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Colt State Park
Route 14
Bristol, RI 02809
Phone: 401-253-7482
A 464-acre state park on the shore of Narragansett Bay, with four miles of hiking and biking trails, gardens, 10 playing fields and 6 picnic groves. Fishing, concerts and naturalist programs in season.
Hours: Year-round. Free.
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General James Mitchell Varnum House
57 Peirce Street
East Greenwich, RI 02818
Phone: 401-884-1776
James Mitchell Varnum was one of George Washington’s generals. His mansion was built in 1773, and visitors can enjoy the Colonial garden, the paneled walls, and period furnishings.
Hours: June-August, Saturday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Donation suggested.
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Governor Stephen Hopkins House
15 Hopkins St.
Providence, RI 02903
Phone: 401-751-1008 401 751-1758
Stephen Hopkins, one of two signers of the Declaration of Independence from Rhode Island, purchased this house in 1743. He attached his own two-story house, built with a central hallway and two chimneys. The handsome shell cupboard over the fireplace and the overdoor panels are similar to other pre-Revolutionary houses.
April to December 1, Wednesday and Saturday, 1 to 4 p.m. Other hours by appointment.
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Green Animals Topiary Gardens
Cory's Lane off Route 114
Portsmouth, RI 02871
Phone: 401-847-1000
Hours: May 24 – October 12, 2008, open daily at 10 a.m.; last tour admission at 5 p.m.; close at 6 p.m. Schedule is subject to change; call 401-847-1000 for more information.
The gardens have more than six dozen trees and shrubs, immaculately groomed and sculpted, some in the shape of animals. Also features fruit trees, flower beds, and a rose arbor. The gardens are the site of a Victorian toy museum
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Hunter House
54 Washington Street
Newport, RI 02840
Phone: 401-847-1000 401-847-7516
Hours: June 21- September 1, 2008, tours offered at 10 and 11 a.m., noon, 1:30, 2:30, 4 and 5 p.m. Schedule is subject to change; call 401-847-1000 for more information.
The French admiral Charles Louis d’Arsac de Ternay used this 1748 home as his Revolutionary War headquarters. The carved pineapple over the doorway was a symbol of welcome throughout Colonial America. The elliptical arch in the central hall is a typical Newport detail.
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Linden Place
500 Hope St. / Route 114
Bristol, RI 02809
Phone: 401-253-0390
The mansion was built in 1810 in the historic district of Bristol. The property includes the mansion, a ballroom built in 1906, a barn built in the 19th century, and an 18th century summer house. The grounds include historic sculpture and gardens.
Hours: Mansion and museum store, May 1 through Columbus Day, Thursday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Sunday, noon-4 p.m.; office open daily, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.
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 New England Vacation Tours
Phone: 802-464-2076
Toll-Free: 800-742-7669
Fax: 802-464-2629
Email: nevt@sover.net
New England Vacation Tours are your group tour experts. We are specialists for all-inclusive tours throughout New England offering Romantic Getaways, air travel and car rental programs, and arrangements for sea cruises along the coast. We have customized chauffeur-driven & self-drive tours, corporate meeting and private party planning & transportation, as well as hotel & country inns accommodations, resort travel and vacation packages. We have escorted fly & motor coach tours to Boston, Cape Cod, Newport, ski resorts in Vermont and New Hampshire including Mount Snow and Attitash, and other destinations in Eastern Canada and along the East Coast.
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Rhode Island Literature
H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937)
A Providence native and author of horror stories and novels, Lovecraft is considered the father of American science fiction and a successor to Edgar Allen Poe. He is best known for his Cthulhu Mythos stories. Some of his stories describe an imaginary place named Arkham that was based Providence. He was born in 1890 at the house currently numbered 454 Angell Street. The boy’s father, a salesman, went mad, was institutionalized, and died when the young Lovecraft was 5. For all his life, Lovecraft suffered from terrifying nightmares. He grew up on the fringe of New England upper society, but suffered from poor health and an overprotective mother. He was a copious reader, discovering The Arabian Nights, Greek mythology, and Edgar Allan Poe at an early age. His fascination with the macabre and weird may have begun with the stories he heard from his grandfather, who, along with his mother and two aunts, helped raise the boy.
After two and half years of high school, he had a nervous breakdown and failed to finish his work for a diploma. However, he was fascinated by science and he began writing about science and astronomy for magazines and local newspapers. The publisher of Weird Tales magazine became interested the young Rhode Island recluse and bought everything Lovecraft wrote. Lovecraft’s mother died when the author was 31 and he lived thereafter with his two aunts. He had a short, two-year marriage in the mid-1920s and spent some time living in New York, which he hated. His fiction turned from the nostalgic (The Shunned House) to the bleak and misanthropic (The Horror at Red Hook and He). In 1926 he moved back to Providence. There, he wrote some of his greatest fiction, from The Call of Cthulhu to At the Mountains of Madness to The Shadow Out of Time. He had found his niche as a writer of weird fiction and correspondence. He died of cancer in 1937 and was buried in Swan Point Cemetery.
The Gravestone of H. P. Lovecraft
Swan Point Cemetery
585 Blackstone Blvd.
Providence, Rhode Island 02906 
Phone: 401-272-1314 or 401-272-3570
Hours: Open Daily 7:30am-5pm
When Lovecraft died in 1937, his name was added to a family monument. It was not until many years later that this individual monument was erected at his gravesite.
H.P. Lovecraft Memorial Plaque
John Hay Library
20 Prospect St.
Providence, Rhode Island 02910
Phone: 401-863-3723
Erected on the centennial of his birth (August 20, 1990), this plaque is just north of the entrance to the John Hay Library, where most of Lovecraft’s original manuscripts are kept.
598 Angell St.
Providence, Rhode Island 02906
Lovecraft’s home from 1904 to 1924, when he married and moved to New York for the following two years.
10 Barnes St.
Providence, Rhode Island 02906
This was the home of Lovecraft from April 1926 to May 1933. This house’s address was listed as that of Dr. Marinus Bicknell Willett in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.
Clement C. Moore (1779-1863)
A man known throughout the Western world as the author of the poem “A Visit From St. Nicholas” and who created the sentimental image of Christmas at home, was born in 1779, in a large estate that cover the present-day area of 18th to 24th streets between Eighth and Tenth avenues in Manhattan. He was the son of Benjamin Moore, Episcopal bishop of New York, rector of Trinity Church, and president of Columbia College. Moore graduated first in his class from Columbia University in 1798. He became a well-known and respected scholar and wrote on a wide variety of topics such as religion, languages, politics, and poetry. When he wrote “A Visit from St. Nicholas” in 1822, at the age of 43, Moore was a professor of Oriental and Greek literature at the General Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Moore, who wished to be remembered for his scholarly work, was embarrassed for most of his life that his scholarly works were overshadowed by the poem, which he considered a trivial work. Nevertheless, it has become a beloved classic. He died in Newport, his summer home, in 1863, just before his 84th birthday.
Cedars, Clement C. Moore House, or The Night
Before Christmas House
25 Catherine St.
Newport, Rhode Island 02840
Now divided into apartments, the house (c. 1856) is where Moore died after long and fruitful life. There is no truth to the myth that he wrote “A Visit from St. Nicholas” here, because he did not begin summering in Newport until about the 1850s.
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Roger Williams Park
1000 Elmwood Avenue
Providence, RI 02907
Roger Williams Park Casino 785-9450 ext. 240; Museum and Planetarium 785-9450 ext. 221; Zoo 785-3510.
Roger Williams Park is a 430-acre Victorian park with something for everyone, including a zoo, a museum of natural history and planetarium, a carousel, a casino, landscaped grounds, and historic buildings.
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Rosecliff
Bellevue Avenue
Newport, RI 02840
Phone: 401-847-1000
This house was completed in 1902 and modeled after the Grand Trianon at Versailles. Rosecliff was the setting for many spectacular Newport parties and the setting for several Hollywood movies, including “The Great Gatsby,” “True Lies,” and “Amistad.”
Hours: November 17, 2007 – January 1, 2008, open daily at 10 a.m.; last tour at 4 p.m.; close at 5 p.m.; last tour on Christmas Eve at 3 pm. Closed Christmas Day. January 2-April 4, 2008, open Saturday, Sundays, holidays, and daily during Winter Festival (February 19-22); open at 10 a.m.; last tour at 4 p.m.; close at 5 p.m. April 5-May 23, open daily at 10 a.m. last tour admission at 5 p.m.; close at 6 p.m. May 24 – October 12, open at 10 a.m.; last tour at 5 p.m., close at 6 p.m.; October 13 – November 14, open at 10 a.m.; last tour at 4 p.m., close at 5 p.m. November 15 – January 4, 2009, open daily at 10 a.m.; last tour at 4 p.m.; close at 5 p.m. Closed Thanksgiving and Christmas Day.
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Samuel Whitehorne House
416 Thames Street
Newport, RI 02840
Phone: 401-849-7300
Built in the 18th century, the house is now home to exhibits of hand-made silver, pewter, and furniture created by Newport artisans of the period. Features a traditional Colonial manor garden.
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Scenic Drives
Blackstone Valley
Gloucester Loop
Ride along country roads, dotted with farms and picturesque apple orchards. Take Exit 7 off of I-295 and travel on Route 44 West. Pass through Chepachet and stay on Route 44 to the hamlet of West Glocester where you will turn left onto Route 94 South. You will travel through the other small hamlets of North foster and Foster Center. Route 94 ends at Route 14 where you will turn left. Follow route 14 through Scituate and at Route 116 turn left to travel north. When you reach Route 44 turn right and return to I-295. Chepachet
Newport
Bellevue Avenue
Newport, RI
This short scenic drive will take you past many of the mansions that Newport is famous for. Most of the popular attractions are visible from the road, as well as many fine homes that remain privately owned and closed to the public.
Bellevue Avenue, Newport, RI
Ocean Drive
Newport, RI
Take a winding drive that offers great views of the Atlantic Ocean and Fort Adams State Park. Follow the signs for Ocean Drive as you approach the end of Bellevue Avenue or from the Fort Adams area. Hint: If your making the drive on sunny afternoon travel Ocean Drive beginning at the Fort Adams end to avoid glare from a setting sun.
Ocean Drive, Newport, RI
Conanicut Island
Jamestown, RI
Driving the roads of this island town will provide spectacular scenery of Narragansett Bay, rolling fields, historic homes and the quaint village center in Jamestown. Take one of the exits off of Route 138 between the bridges. Enjoy meandering and don’t worry about getting lost. Jamestown
South County
Route 3
Route 3 parallels I-95 from Exit 1 to Exit 6. This drive is a nice break from the interstate. Traveling north on I-95 take Exit 1 just after your cross into Rhode Island from Connecticut and get on Route 3 North in Hopkinton. You’ll drive through the little village of Hopkinton with its old country store and then on to Hope Valley. At a traffic light in Hope Valley Route 3 forks to the left, and Route 138 to Newport goes to the right. Bear left staying on Route 3 pass the State Police barracks and then under the interstate. Stay on Route 3 as you travel through Exeter and West Greenwich. After you pass a big field and cemetery on the left and travel down hill you will see an elevated I-95 running parallel on your left. You can soon rejoin I-95 at Exit 6. Hopkinton - West Greenwich
Route 138
Hope Valley and North Kingstown, RI
This route will take you past scenic farmland and the historic site of the University of Rhode Island. Route 138 may be traveled from Exit 3 on I-95 to the Jamestown Bridge North Kingstown. Hope Valley - North Kingstown
Route 1A
Westerly – Charlestown - So. Kingston, RI
Route 1A is a delightful, scenic diversion from US Route 1. The road meanders along the coves and inlets, affording riders with views of water and the countryside. Accessible from Route 1 at several points in South County. Westerly - South Kingstown
Providence
Foliage can best be appreciated on foot in the city, rather than trying to leaf peep while negotiating traffic. Take a walk along Benefit Street in the College Hill neighborhood and enjoy the old colonial era houses. Blackstone Boulevard on the East Side is another fine walk that features majestic homes and lawns. At the north end of the boulevard enter Swan Point Cemetery which overlooks the Blackstone River. Adjacent is the Riverside Cemetery with an impressive array of trees. Providence
Warwick – East Greenwich
Goddard Park has miles of woodsy horse trails, open fields with large old trees, a beach and nine-hole golf course. Exit 8 form I-95 to Route 2 South. At the first set of lights turn left onto Route 401 and take 2.5 miles into the village of East Greenwich. Turn right onto Route 1 South. At next light turn left onto Forge Road. Goddard Park comes up on left behind the very long stone wall. Entrance is at the far end of the wall. East Greenwich
Scituate Loop
This drive will take you around portions of the Scituate Reservoir, the pristine water source for much of Rhode Island. Access to the shoreline and water is not allowed. From I-295 take Exit 4 to Route 14 West. Go through the intersection with Route 116. You will pass over part of the reservoir and then into the pretty town of Scituate. Continue on Route 14 out of town and then turn left onto Route 12. This will take you across the Hope Dam. At Route 116 turn left, traveling north. At Route 14 turn right and retrace your drive back to I-295.
Scituate
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Seahorse Grill and Gardens at Theatre by the Sea
364 Card’s Pond Road
Matunuck, RI 02879
These lush seaside gardens embrace the historic Theater-By-The-Sea complex from the gazebo area, down the unique arbor walk to the rolling lawns surrounding the inn. More than 300 varieties of perennials, grasses, shrubs, and climbing plants.
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Wanton-Lyman-Hazard House
17 Broadway
Newport, RI 02840
Phone: 401-846-0813
The oldest restored home in Newport, built in 1675. The house is the site of the Stamp Act Riot of 1765 and was home to Colonial governors, justices, and patriots. Property also contains a Colonial herb garden.
Hours: Open during the summer or by appointment. Call for times.
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Wilcox Park
71 1/2 High Street, Downtown Westerly
Westerly, RI 02891
Phone: 401-596-2877 ext. 334
Toll-Free: 866-460-2877 ext. 334
This Victorian strolling park has unique species of trees, a dwarf conifer collection, and perennial and annual flower beds. Annual events include the Garden Market Fair, Summer Pops Concert, and Shakespeare in the Park. The Westerly Band performs in the 100-year-old bandstand.
Hours: Open year-round.
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