Rustic Retreat
The schoolhouse renovations took about two years to complete but the grounds, which
lured Peixinho from the start, were naturally charmed. A previous owner planted a variety
of specimen trees, including a variegated pagoda dogwood, walking stick trees and a dwarf
beech, and lined the edges of the property — about five minutes from the beach — with
lush rhododendruns. A historic stone riverbed cuts through the rear of the rectangularshaped
acre, welcoming Paradise Brook much of the year.
“It’s just in the hot, hot summer that it dries up,” says Peixinho.
The fairy tale landscape only required one thing: A place to sit and take it all in.
“After about two summers there it became obvious it needed an outdoor living space,”
Peixinho says. “That was a necessity.”
Peixinho looked to a falling-down chicken coop tacked onto the barn out back. Instead
of planning a demolition — or, perhaps too on the nose, adventures in animal husbandry
— Peixinho envisioned a patio that afforded views of the gurgling brook. He leaned into
the rusticity of the site and propped up the coop’s roof with cedar posts, leaving the bark
and branch remnants intact.
LEFT: The wall-mounted fish sculpture on
the patio is by Captain Mike’s Woodshop in
Brewster, Massachusetts; “Peixinho” translates
to “little fish” in Portuguese. OPPOSITE PAGE:
The barn’s coffee table is a repurposed fish
trap. The house-shaped antique wood stove
once belonged to Alfred Smith, a Gilded Age
real estate tycoon who made his fortune
selling Newport farmland to New Yorkers.
86 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l OCTOBER 2020