NM Isham, Architect – Colonial Restoration #2

When Orlando R. Smith inherited the Joshua Babcock home and decided to restore its colonial appearance, he obtained the assistance of Norman M Isham to design the restoration.  Isham, one of the leaders of colonial restoration in the United States, was based in Providence.  The archives of the Babcock-Smith House Museum include about a dozen blueprints prepared between 1925 and 1930, but no other documentation.

Ellen Madison organized a visit to the Rhode Island Historical Society’s Mary Robinson Research Center in Providence to search their Isham archives. Lido Mochetti, Ed Fazio, and Hugh Barton joined on July 2025.  The Isham archive is briefly indexed online and stored in 9 boxes taking up three and a half linear feet of shelf space. It covers much of his career from about 1899 to 1943.  His diaries and notebooks turned out to be rich sources of information about the project at the Babcock House. Reading through 365 diary pages each year and deciphering Isham’s handwriting was not an easy task but uncovered fascinating nuggets of information.

Traditionally, the museum dates the restoration to 1928, which turns out to be the mid-point of the work.  Orlando R Smith spoke at the Westerly Library about the remodeling for the opening meeting of the Westerly Historical Society’s new season on October 11, 1929, as reported in the Westerly Sun the next day.  No copies of this talk have been found (let us know if you have one!), but the news story says that the work “was begun two years ago”. 

Reviewing Isham’s daily diaries found records of visits from 1925 through 1931.  His first visit was Friday, April 3, 1925 while one of the last was to review interior details on January 9, 1931.

In July and Aug 1925, Isham came with an assistant, Randolph Bullock, to measure the Babcock House.  Isham’s Rhode Island notebooks, stored in box 1 of the archive, contained all the measurements of the rooms.  Eight pages of measurements in 1925 were supplemented with additional pages of information and drawings largely from 1926.  The diaries, notebooks, and the museum’s blueprints show that work in 1925 and 1926 was to design the remodeling of the house.  In late May 1926, the order was placed for the steel beam to be installed in the keeping room to support the second floor.  The parlor fireplace design was prepared in 1929 and revised in 1930 indicating final interior details were being completed.

To everyone’s surprise, photographs included interior views from 1909 of the rooms in their Victorian décor.  They must have been given to Isham to assist in his work as they are labeled on the back as in the Isham collection.  About a dozen black and white photographs of the exterior show the house prior to, during and after the remodeling work.

The staff at the Historical Society center were very helpful in making this half-day visit so productive.  The finds in the archives create a richer picture of the people and work required for this multiyear effort to design and construct the restoration.