W. F. Segar House

Standing at the front of a colony of middle-class summer cottages (mostly from the twentieth century) is this rare unaltered survivor from the late nineteenth century. Here there is no adornment to beguile the eye, only memorable starkness. A sharply pitched, L-shaped gabled mass folds around a spindly tower. This lookout compounds the angularity with cross gabling, which is left peaked in the sea-to-shore axis, with peaks clipped in the axis of the beach. A broad porch across the front wraps halfway around the sides. For the rest, the spare spacing of openings and the textures of contrasting materials complete the image. Wood shingles, weatherbeaten to black-brown, are set against the cobblestone parapeting and posts of the porch. A cobblestone wall sets the property off from the road. Even the shingled barn is intact. Had the artist Edward Hopper lived at Matunuck Beach, this is the building he would have painted.