The story of Shelter Harbor Inn begins in 1911, when a New York voice teacher turned an old Rhode Island farmhouse into a summer home for musicians. The colony they built surrounds the Inn today, and their music still sets the tone here.
Dr. Franklin Lawson wanted a place where New York’s singers and musicians could leave the noise of the city behind. He found it here, in an 1800 farmhouse near the salt ponds of the Rhode Island shore. He opened it as an inn, laid out roads through the fields and called the new colony Musicolony. Within weeks, vocalists, an opera agent and a Broadway writer had claimed lots of their own.
A place to rest, rehearse and create.
The music never really left. Over the decades, opera gave way to jazz and then rock and roll, and when the Inn was renewed in 2019, its salons were filled with nods to the artists who shaped that sound.
1800
A Farmhouse Rises
A Greek Revival farmhouse is built near the Rhode Island shore.
1911
Musicolony Begins
Dr. Franklin Lawson opens the farmhouse as an inn and invites New York musicians to spend their summers here.
1920s
A New Name
As teachers, writers and families join the musicians, the colony becomes known as Shelter Harbor.
2019
A Fresh Chapter
Interior designers Randolph Duke and Blake Maroon renew the Main House, Barn and Carriage House with color, art and textiles old and new.
Today
Still Gathering
Twenty-two rooms, three historic buildings and more than three acres, made for time together.
Dr. Lawson named the colony's roads for great composers and performers, and the lanes added later followed his lead. Wagner Road runs right past our front door.
Wagner · Verdi · Rossini · Donizetti · Gounod · Caruso · Gershwin · Haydn · Schubert · Brahms · Grieg · Handel · Schumann · Liszt · Bach
OUR ADDRESS: 10 WAGNER ROAD
The 2019 renewal kept the farmhouse bones and filled the rooms with
color, art and character.
A stone hearth from the farmhouse’s early days still warms the lobby on cool nights.
Clam shell bowls of vintage cassettes, shelves of music history and plush couches made for a game, a good book or catching up with the people you came with.
Randolph Duke and Blake Maroon set plush couches, pops of color and a mix of old and new textiles among the 1800s rooms.
Today the Inn is made for staying and gathering. Spend an afternoon with lawn games, a match on the tennis court or a book in a hammock, then end the night around the fire pits. Come for a getaway for two, a wedding weekend with everyone you love or a retreat for a team that needs room to think. What connects them is time together, in a place with a story.
22
Rooms
3
Buildings
3+
Acres
1
Private Beach
Book a getaway, or bring everyone together for a celebration of your own.
