Newport Studio
Lirio’s Newport Studio is located in the Joseph Rogers House, an historic house on Washington Square at 37 Touro Street built c. 1790 by Joseph Rogers, a merchant.
It remained in private hands until the 1890s, when it was adapted for use as a convent and parochial school by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence. It was given to the Preservation Society of Newport County in 1961. Dr. and Mrs. David Van Pelt restored the building for the Society, which used it as its headquarters until 1992.
The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.
Washington Square
Washington Square is the geographical and historical heart of Newport. More trapezoid than square, it exists at the intersection of several major streets and the former colonial Long Wharf which projected from Aquidneck Island into the Narragansett Bay harbor. Washington Square dates back to the first colonial settlement of Newport in 1639 while much of its current configuration and place names are from the 19th century. Several venerable American elms continue to shade Washington Square.