After more than 3 years on the market, the property located at 333 Poppasquash Road, most recently known as Point Pleasant Inn, has sold for $7,250,000. With 11 bedrooms, 12 bathrooms, and over 13,500 square feet, it sold for just under the original asking price of $7,500,000. It’s a remarkable property, with its origins in one of 19th and 20th century Bristol’s most illustrious merchant families.

Charles Bristed Rockwell built the two and a half story Tudor Revival country house in 1937-1938 on some 50 acres of the farmland on Poppasquash Point. Named for the Nathaniel Byfield 1680s dwelling that stood to the south, it is believed that the Rockwells began living at Point Pleasant on the same day that the 1938 hurricane struck.

Charles B. Rockwell was the son of Charles Rockwell, who, among other things, owned Namquit Mill, on the site of what is now the developing Bristol Yarn Mill at the southern end of Thames Street. Described by the late local historian Richard V. Simpson as “an able and conscientious executive, sound in judgment and capable in the direction of large affairs,” Rockwell, Sr. was involved in a great many local endeavors, including director of the Bristol Branch of the Industrial Trust Company, The Young Men’s Christian Association Building, Rockwell Hall, the M. B. S. Rockwell Convalescent House, the old DeWolf Inn plot on Thames Street (now Rockwell Park), the Town Council, and St. Michael’s Church.

As the heir to his father’s successes and obligations, Charles B. Rockell is said to have sited his new home directly across the harbor from Namquit Mill, in order to have a good view of work from home, and vice-versa.

The house was designed by Wallis Howe, an architect with deep Bristol roots whose career spanned from 1894-1960. Among the many local buildings credited to Howe and his associates are the Bristol Armory (now Maritime Center); St. Martin’s Church, the Old Stone Bank, and Rochambeau Library in Providence; Astor Hall at St. George’s School, and the Barrington Public Library.

The original landscaping was designed by prolific landscape designer Fletcher Steele, who created over 700 gardens from 1915 to 1971. Steele is known for bridging the transition from Beaux Arts formalism to modern landscape design, and he believed that landscape architecture was an art form on par with painting or music. His most famous work is the Naumkeag estate in Stockbridge, Mass.

Bristol resident Gina Macdonald recalls being so impressed by the property, which she first spotted while sailing on Bristol Harbor as a college student in the late 1960s, that she told her parents about it. Her parents, James and Jean Macdonald, offered $150,000 sight unseen, a price that was rejected, despite the fact that “you could buy a mansion in Newport for $100,000 in those days,” said Macdonald. Four months later, the realtor contacted the Macdonalds and told them that the property was theirs, if they would sweeten the deal to $160,000. In the 50+ years since then, the property has had two additional owners.

The $7,250,000 sale was the highest residential sale in Bristol County in the past 18 months, and the second-highest on record.