places
The chapel at Rhode Island’s Por
divine design
tsmouth Abbey & School is reborn
thanks to a renovation by Newport Collaborative Architects
Written by WILLIAM MORGAN
Photography by NAT REA
In a region filled with exceptional houses of worship, the newly renovated chapel at Portsmouth Abbey & School in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, is a treasure that mixes Old World ornamentation with modern architecture and green technology. Set on 500 picturesque acres of open fields and woods
overlooking Narragansett Bay, the Abbey, formally the Church of
St. Gregory the Great, is the centerpiece of a monastery, founded in
1918, and a Catholic boarding school, started eight years later.
Two small pieces of medieval French stonework that are
the modernist chapel has an
air of medieval mystery. Dark
stone, wood, and stained glass
draw the eye to the dramatically
lit figure of Christ suspended
above the limestone altar, a
classic piece completed in 1937
by sculptor and school faculty
member John Benson.
