Letter: Bristol can help save the home of the original ‘Gibson Girl’

Posted 10/25/18

In the town of Bristol stand many of the homes, the buildings, designed by Russell Warren. “Longfield” is the first of that fine architect’s design to welcome folk to Bristol, at …

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Letter: Bristol can help save the home of the original ‘Gibson Girl’

Posted

In the town of Bristol stand many of the homes, the buildings, designed by Russell Warren. “Longfield” is the first of that fine architect’s design to welcome folk to Bristol, at 1200 Hope St. across from Gibson Road.

Built in 1850 by Charles Dana Gibson for the family, Longfield is a treasured example of Gothic Revival design, adorned with a happy pattern of “gingerbread” emphasis.

It was home, too, to the famous artist, his son, Charles Dana Gibson, until he moved his studio to New York City — and eventually became famous in the United States and all across Europe for his artistic creation of feminine pulchritude and perfection of the early 1900s — the “Gibson Girl.”

She was the perfect young woman of her time — a country person also at ease in the cosmopolitan city, graceful, gracious and adept in her brother’s office as well as the golf course, the home kitchen, and above all, the ballroom, dancing feet under simply gorgeous gowns, hair piled high, and of course, handsome gentlemen in attendance. The original Gibson Girl, Josephine Gibson Knowlton, lived with her husband and featured dog, Mike, in the home, but then Longfield became, year by year through a series of owners, except for one, the heartbreak house — neglect, actual destruction, amateur plans gone astray — and all passersby seeing it. So many Bristol folk said, “why doesn’t someone do something,” and no one did — until now.

On Oct. 29, Ed Redmond, his team and his architect, will present a revised plan to be approved by the Bristol Zoning Board — the future of Bristol caring is that night.

In the meantime, we caring Bristolians politely bombard the zoning board by all communications — Tweets and emails and on snail-mail postcards — to accept the Redmond plan of a well laid out setting of roads and a few carriage-house type condos, all surrounding the revived, handsome as ever, Russell Warren Gothic genius.

It must happen. Rhode Island waits to see if Bristol is finally going to do something about the heartbreak collapsing mansion — and just maybe there will be a small condo inside Longfield for a modern Gibson Girl — or a modern Gibson Girl grandmother. Time is of the essence.

Sally Wilson

Bristol

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