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Contact Information
Knight Estate Historic Restoration Committeec/o CCRI Foundation
Tel: 401-333-7150
Fax: 401-333-7111
foundation@ccri.edu
The Knight Estate
Visitors’ Center
located in the Cider Mill is open April through June and September through October, every Wednesday 12:00 to 4:00 p.m.
ADMISSION IS FREE
Knight Estate Restoration
The Knight Family
The Knights, one of RI’s most prominent families during the 19th century, made their fortune in the textile industry. Their most well known contribution was the Fruit of the Loom brand. The Knight family entered the textile industry in 1848 when they bought nearby Pontiac Mills. In 1873, another prominent RI family, the Spragues, met with financial ruin. Robert and Benjamin Brayton Knight acquired some of the Sprague’s mills as well as this “mansion estate” in 1875. According to the Warwick City Historian, the brothers converted the property into a model “gentleman’s farm”.
The Knights operated this working farm until they deeded it and the surrounding acreage in 1964 to the State of RI for the new home of the community college. It is rare to find an historic property with such a significant number of intact original buildings. The Knight Estate Restoration Committee is working to preserve and restore this rare jewel and eventually open it to the public as a piece of Rhode Island’s rich heritage.
Welcome to the Knight Estate
The Cider Mill housed horse powered apple presses, which provided fresh apple cider for the Knight family and their mill stores. The Cider Mill, a two story building with a full walkout basement, is the estate’s only structure that is not wood frame, but is constructed of stone and mortar.
The Greenhouse has an attached potting shed, and contains a central heat system. The greenhouse was manufactured by the well-known Lord and Burnham Company. The cold frames used to extend the growing season are still in place next to the greenhouse.
The Water Tower is quite
unique in its design and is described by the National Register of Historic
Places as the most important building on the estate. Built to provide gravity-fed
water from the artesian wells to the farm, the four story Water Tower sits
on its original stone foundation, on about 200 square feet of land . The
National Register goes on to describe this stunning example of late Victorian
architecture as a windmill.
The Carriage House and Barn currently house two of the original carriages from the Knight family. These carriages are planned as future exhibits in the Cider Mill Visitors Center. The main building is a two story structure with a hay loft on the second level.
The Corn Crib was used to store corn for feed for their prized Ayreshire cattle and Morgan horses over the winter.
The Box Stalls and the attached Tack Room may have been used by the Knight family to house small-breed horses or their prized cattle.
The Hen House is located between the Box Stalls and the Corn Crib .
