This lovely, quaint home was built for William Watts Sherman, a New York financier, and his first wife, Annie Wetmore, on property left to her by her father, William Shepard Wetmore of Chateau-sur-Mer. A round Chinese Moon Gate, original to Chateau-sur-Mer, now links the two properties. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, this roomy summer villa is one of 19th century America's architectural landmarks, as well as one of the greatest treasures of Salve Regina's campus.

The fanciful shingle and stucco house with its massive chimneys and unifying broad gable was one of the first adaptations of the English Queen Anne country house of Richard Norman Shaw. Richardson combined medieval European, Renaissance English and Colonial American elements into a composition that was both functional and decorative. He used natural materials such as stone and weathered wood shingles to visually integrate the house into its rural, coastal environment, and employed innovative sensuous textures of wood, tile, brick and stone. The William Watts Sherman House is generally regarded as a stepping-off point for what later became known as the Shingle Style in American architecture.

Inside, Richardson replaced the traditional small entrance hall and series of rooms with an English living hall and flowing floor plan of useful open spaces. Charles Follen McKim and Stanford White, young architects working for Richardson, were inspired by the exciting design elements and carried them into their groundbreaking commissions of the 1880s. Interiors in the Jacobean Revival style are original except for three redecorated rooms supervised by White. After Annie's death, William Watts Sherman married Sophia Augusta Brown, and commissioned further renovations. The house later served as the Baptist Home of Rhode Island and during that time a utilitarian extension was added. Salve acquired the property in 1982.