Home sweet rock

Clingstone, the 10,000-square-foot house Wood bought nearly 50 years ago, goes by another name to the locals. “It has always been ‘The House on a Rock,’ ’’ says Lara Davis, an MIT graduate student who grew up in Jamestown, a five-minute boat ride away. On a recent day, she invited herself to Clingstone, a trip she had longed to make since she was a girl ogling the mansion from the shore.

Davis, 30, is studying architecture, and Wood is a retired architect of some renown. Getting to Clingstone was a childhood dream. “My sister,’’ giggles Davis, ’’ is sooo jealous.’’

Clingstone, perched at the edge of the main passage from the open ocean to the bay, offers a spectacular 360-degree water view. There’s Newport across the water, with the bridge off to the left. The water glitters, and cormorants as still as statues dry their wings on rocks.

Wood, who lives in Boston, is delighted to be back on the rock, where he spends his weekends from spring till fall, save for the occasional renters. There’s always a son - or two, or three - there, too.

A ‘Work Day’ tradition

The cedar shingle mansion was built as an act of defiance in 1905 by one of Wood’s distant cousins, Joseph Lovering Wharton. “The government took his land to build Fort Wetherill in Jamestown, so he came out here,’’ says Wood, who bought the house in 1961 with his ex-wife, Joan. It has always been an eccentric place; Wharton’s guests were asked to sign a book and then draw a picture of a pig while blind-folded.

Today, its quirks are more practical: Clingstone is “green,’’ or sustainable, from the windmill on the roof to the composting toilets. “Sustainability has transformed a 1905 house into a 21st-century house,’’ says Wood, as proud of it as he is of Boston City Hall or the Hynes Convention Center; he was in charge of construction for both.

And Wood and his sons - aided by a crew of friends - have done it all themselves. “Work Day,’’ which occurs around Memorial Day weekend each year, attracts 50 to 100 friends who are put to good use. Henry Wood likens it to a barn-raising, while son Josh calls it “our own little version of private socialism.’’