William Tinkham–Austin T. Levy House (Southmeadow)

Diagonally across the road from the Ernest Tinkham house is what was apparently his father's house, built by William Tinkham on his arrival in Harrisville, and later occupied by Ernest's brother Henry, before Levy bought it in 1915. Originally, the house was a rather plain dwelling with a mixture of late Greek Revival and Italian Villa influences. When Austin and June Levy remodeled it and approximately doubled its size in 1918, they sought a comfortable “colonial” effect, insofar as this was possible. The favored style for Levy's generation (loosely incorporating early national work as well), it also characterizes most of his many architectural and restoration benefactions in Harrisville. His most conspicuous additions to the exterior of this house were the side ell and the tall staircase window on its east side. Levy christened his house Southmeadow for the climactic feature in its spacious grounds: a terraced landscape, with an Italian garden and tennis courts on a south-facing slope down to the Clear River. As an ensemble, house and landscape possess a more reticent and secluded aspect than the conspicuous display of Levy's predecessor across the street. It proclaims the “refinement” in which early-twentieth-century wealth often chose to shroud itself under the aegis of Renaissance and colonial inspiration.