The former Cluny School and its surrounding property, located at 75 Brenton Road were sold on September 25, 2020, for $1,600,000, according to records available through Rhode Island’s statewide MLS database.

This is the second time that the property, which includes 2 buildings on a 4.63 acre parcel, has sold since the school closed in June 2017.

After closing in 2017, the property was listed on August 28, 2017, for $2.995 million. In December 2018, the property was sold for $1,325,000 to Downeaster Alexa Holdings, LLC, a Somerset, Massachusetts based residential and commercial property developer.

According to MLS, the property was listed on January 21, 2020, for $2,750,000 and changed to $2,450,000 on July 2, 2020.

The new buyers of the property have not been identified and plans for the property are not public at this time.

The property description states; “Woven into the residential fabric of the Ocean Drive District of Newport sits a 17,108. sq ft. School Building. Sister School 5000 sq. ft. Main School building newly renovated in 2008 with 2 new additions connected. 4.63 acres of property. Two historic gardener cottages and Carriage House/Barn on land. 34 parking spaces. Prime location. Playground area & Field for sports. Originally part of the Arthur Curtis James Estate where the land was used for the Estate flower gardens and produce. R160 Zone-Critical Area with Institutional Overlay. Previously K-8. Location Prime. Bucolic in nature and beauty. Unique and rare opportunity to acquire a piece of Newport’s highly, coveted land. Opportunity to bank land, use or lease. See special use opportunities in local zoning attachments”.

The Cluny School, established in 1957, was a private Catholic elementary school for grades PK -8 and was incorporated into the Catholic School System of the Diocese of Providence up until it closed at the end of the 2016/2017 school year.

The Cluny School first opened as a small kindergarten in September of 1957 in response to a request made to the Sisters of St. Joseph of Cluny from military families stationed at Fort Adams. A grade was added each year thereafter until the first Cluny eighth grade graduation in 1965. The school operated on a portion of land donated to the Diocese of Providence by the estate of the late Arthur Curtiss James, which was deeded to the Diocese of Providence in 1941.