Kent Cottage

History

Landfall was originally a small Georgian-style structure built by the Pomeroy family around 1786. It was built near Brigus Bay, on the Battery, named for the gun emplacements that were there in the 1740s during King George's War. The area was also known as Freshwater as it was a source of water for sealing fleets. The Pomeroy family used the structure as a dwelling for many years but eventually turned it into a barn.

The American artist and writer Rockwell Kent lived in the cottage for about a year and a half in 1914-1915. Trained as an architect, in 1915 he rebuilt the structure and added the addition on the west side. Around this time the structure became known as Kent Cottage, and it was featured in some of his paintings. There still remain some small works that Kent painted on the surface of interior walls and doors.

Albert Edward Harris, an artist and engineer, purchased and restored the cottage sometime after Kent's departure in 1915. Harris also depicted the cottage in his paintings. He lived and worked there from 1929. After his death in 1933 the cottage remained vacant for twenty years until Rupert Bartlett purchased it. The following year it was sold to Bradley Jacob Folensbee, Jr., an artist who lived there until 2005. Folensbee invested considerably in preserving and restoring the cottage and acquired surrounding land to protect it. He enabled the creation of the Landfall Trust, which now owns and maintains the property. The entire preserve is now 11 acres (4.5 ha).

The cottage was designated a Registered Heritage Structure in 1988 by the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Modern use

Kent Cottage is now used for the Landfall Trust's artists-in-residence and writers-in-residence programs. It is also used for vacation rentals from May through October and is only occasionally open for public viewing.