Slice of Paradise: Couple renovates Middletown home and preserves the small, coastal charm

An Oklahoma couple found their dream home and turned it into a year-round, art-filled sanctuary

Dave Hansen photos

The house at 10 Orchard Avenue in Middletown sits on a quiet street, where the homes are unassuming, the birds are chirpy, and the yards lush. These days, it’s a year-round sanctuary for Nancy Love Robertson and Sharon “Shar” Dodson, who first fell in love with the neighborhood while living in their Airstream at the nearby Paradise RV Park, where they set up for five summers after driving east from Oklahoma City, Okla., where they were living at the time.

“We came up to get out of the heat,” says Nancy.

“And to go to the jazz festival,” adds Shar, recalling how much they loved the experience of spending summer on Aquidneck Island. Their Airstream, which Nancy dubbed the “Silver Ladybug,” was 128 square feet, and they towed it with a large SUV. The journey took four days and three nights, and Nancy was the designated driver. (Shar was tasked with backing up the vehicle, a skill she learned from parking horse trailers.)

“Once we got here, we’d get out and say, ‘Oh my god, we’re back!’” recalls Nancy. Both women are from Oklahoma. They met through mutual friends at a wine tasting in 2012, although both recall first connecting in 2009. They have since been married.

“We met later in life,” says Nancy, to which Shar adds: “It took us both by surprise.”

About five years ago, they started looking for real estate in this area. “We figured if we could live in 128 square feet, we could down-size to a small home,” explains Nancy, noting their cross-country trek was becoming a physically demanding form of travel.

They met Elena Wilcox at Gustave White Sotheby’s International Realty, who was instrumental in helping them find their dream home.

“We knew we wanted to be in this neighborhood,” says Nancy.

“We love this neighborhood,” says Shar.

So, when the Orchard Avenue house became available in 2021, they knew it was the one. They closed in December and immediately connected with Christopher Arner, the principal at CWA Architects. Arner lives and works in Newport and is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design.

“The guy listens,” says Nancy, explaining how he managed to bring to life all their requests, among them making room for two bedrooms and two full baths, a design challenge given the house’s small footprint. “He figured it out,” she says.

The original structure was so compact it was nearly impossible to stand upright on the second floor. “I remember thinking: Wow these are really low ceilings,” recalls Arner of the house, which was built in 1938.

The renovated home retains the same foundation as the original, covering 860 square feet. That doesn’t include a screened-in porch, which brings the total living space to about 1,000 square feet. By contrast, the couple’s home in Oklahoma City was a 2,000-square-foot Craftsman-style house.

“We wanted to build something that was cohesive with New England,” says Nancy, noting that they never intended to replace the original small home with a larger one (much to the surprise, and delight, of their new neighbors). The wanted “a more humble footprint,” she explains.

The couple credits both Arner and their contractor, Tony Pinheiro, with helping them carve out as much space as possible throughout the renovation and building process.

“Any place you find a hole, we want storage,” Shar recalls requesting, which led to pockets of storage here and there.

Another request: vaulting the ceilings wherever possible, which Arner was able to do in the main bedroom, guest bedroom, bathrooms, entryway, and porch. As a result, the second floor feels much larger than its footprint; it’s airy and bright, with light streaming in from three sides and ample views of the backyard.

The second bedroom doubles as a workout room (complete with wall mirror and mounted barre) and reading area. It features a Murphy bed, allowing the space to be transformed when there are guests visiting. And since they moved in, the couple has hosted several guests, including curious family members from Oklahoma.

A large feature window in the stairwell, which looks out to the street, allows for swaths of light to stream upstairs and downstairs; the stairwell itself is lined with vinyl seagrass wallpaper, which lends warmth and texture. The original floorplan had the stairwell in the back of the house and moving it to the front helped open up the entire space, explains Arner.

In addition to two full bathrooms featuring heated floors upstairs, there is a half bath downstairs, off the entryway mudroom, with a window that opens to the screened porch, allowing airflow. There is an outdoor shower off the garage, which also features a built-in cedar closet for storing winter coats.

Art is everywhere, in the form of wall hangings, sculptures, and interesting light fixtures. The inspiration for the home’s styling, says Nancy, was a French bistro aesthetic. It is evident in the bathroom tiling, kitchen island barstools, and thematic posters.

Moving to Middletown required a major downsizing from the couple’s home in Oklahoma City, including rehoming much of their art collection. A few pieces made the move, among them a colorful Murano glass light fixture situated above the dining table, a large slab of red cedarwood from Oklahoma hanging above their bed, some vintage chalkware sculptures, and a large, circular patinaed piece called “Migration” adorning the stairwell.

Neither woman was a stranger to New England before setting out with the Airstream to Paradise Park. Nancy had spent summers on Cape Cod, where she learned of the Newport Jazz Festival. Shar was a flight attendant with American Airlines for 42 years and often traveling. (It’s worth noting that Nancy’s first friend on Aquidneck Island was Bari Freeman, founder and executive director of Bike Newport. The two met when Nancy was parking her bike at Fort Adams State Park to attend the jazz fest in 2012, her first visit to Newport.)

Both Nancy and Shar are longtime Joni Mitchell fans and were in attendance at the Newport Folk Festival in 2022 when the legendary singer-songwriter appeared on stage for the closing set. A limited-edition Joni Mitchell “Newport” poster is among the framed artwork in their current collection.

A few other spatial hacks: There is now access to a fully finished basement from inside, and on the stairway landing to the basement, a pantry was constructed for kitchen overflow (there is also a cat door so Jet, their kitty, can come and go with ease to and from her food dishes and litter box); a bench along one side of the dining table doubles as a storage space; and on the opposite wall, facing the couch, are built-in bookshelves, also with storage and room for a TV.

“It lives larger for us,” says Shar of the space, which never feels constricting. “It helps that we really like each other,” adds Nancy, with a smile. They live with Jet and their dog Georgia.

“It’s been a good journey,” says Nancy, “and, really, [Arner] has been the foundation of it. ”

The architect, who dropped by the house for a brief visit during an interview, expressed his gratitude and admits the project was a bit of a puzzle, in the best of ways. The trio have clearly formed a bond, which seems a testament to the project having been a positive, and fun, experience.

One summer while Nancy and Shar were staying at Paradise Park, a woman walked by and stopped to say how much she admired what they had done with their space.

“We had the cutest campsite you ever laid eyes on,” says Nancy.

That woman turned out to be Karen Barbera, a local landscape architect who also lives in the neighborhood, and another person who became a friend after an initial meeting.

Barbera’s son-in-law is Tony Pinheiro of Pinheiro Construction in Jamestown, who Nancy and Shar hired as their contractor. Pinheiro’s wife is Mikhaela Pinheiro, Barbera’s daughter, who works at McKay’s Furniture in North Kingstown, and who helped the couple with some of their design decisions, like wallpaper choices, window treatments, and a few furniture selections.

When it came time to landscape, Nancy and Shar called Barbera, who works at Inspired Design. She devised the landscaping plan and helped install a French drain system in the backyard.

“It was a family affair,” says Nancy. (After the couple moved in, they invited all their immediate neighbors to what turned out to be a rather large gathering—everyone had been wondering what they were up to at 10 Orchard Ave.).

Now, what the couple once thought might be a seasonal retreat, has become their year – round home. They acknowledge that friends and family in Oklahoma were stunned when they found out the two were moving—permanently—to Rhode Island. Nancy had been living in her home for 25 years and was deeply embedded in the neighborhood. Both their extended families were nearby.

Still, island life was calling.

In May of 2023, the couple officially moved into their Orchard Avenue oasis, and this spring celebrated two years of coastal living.

“We have not looked back,” says Nancy.

“Not at all, not at all,” adds Shar. “We love this place.”