United States Naval War College

The ruggedly severe aspect of the two later buildings of the War College, especially Luce Hall, with its walls of random-coursed gray stone, entrance porches, and gables is likely to attract the most attention from the distance. It is imposing in length and is sited at the crest of a long, treeless slope, which is echoed in the long slopes of hipped and gabled roofs. These are pierced just above their eaves by the exceptional feature of a row of continuous slotlike windows, each with its own very long slope, all climaxed in a stubby cupola. But Founders Hall, the original building of this high-command college for instruction in tactics and global naval strategy is perhaps the most interesting. A plain Federal building with a cupola and a lunette window stretched in its pediment, it is fronted by a tall Victorian veranda reached by a steep climb of steps. (Extensions to either side are, like the porch, later additions.) Plainness and austerity carry the day here, with a touching sense of the domestic simply blown up to institutional scale. It is now a museum open to the public; perhaps its most notable permanent exhibit covers the development of naval torpedoes, commemorating the factory which made them on adjacent Goat Island. Behind Founders Hall, a road runs past an interesting row of Victorian duplexes built as officers' quarters.