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NEWPORT — After living in Foxwood House for two years, Jeanine Shawgo said she got bored.
It was 2003, two years after she moved into the Victorian- style home with her husband Roger Shawgo. The couple built all 6,200 square feet of Foxwood House themselves — Roger with some experience building rental housing, Jeanine with none.
“After playing and having it built and not doing anything, I got bored,” Jeanine said. “And said I got to do something.”
Since then, the Shawgos have run businesses out of their home at 125 Foxwood Drive in Newport. Formerly a tea house and vintage show host, Foxwood House is now a wedding venue, hosting more than 200 weddings in the last 12 years.
But its last wedding is this year. By the end of 2025, the Shawgos will retire, turning Foxwood House back into their private home.
“We’re in our 70s. It’s time to stop working, time to not do anything,” said Jeanine, 71. Roger is 73. “And I want our private home back to our private home.”
Foxwood House started as the Foxwood Tea House, where the Shawgos served high Victorian teas to the dozens who attended their tea parties. Guests came dressed in clothing from the late 1800s to early 1900s, per Foxwood House’s architectural and interior design.
Then, Jeanine got bored again. So for nine of the 14 years she and Roger hosted tea parties, they also hosted a vintage show — Treasures on Foxwood, a juried, two-day show with 50 vendors selling antiques, collectibles and other vintage goods. When Jeanine got bored a third time, they hosted Junk in my Trunk, another vintage show.
Finally, Roger asked Jeanine why they were not doing weddings.
“And I’m like, oh, OK,” Jeanine said. “I guess we’ll do weddings.”
Jeanine and Roger run Foxwood House as a two-person team. On wedding days, Jeanine said they are awake at 6 a.m. and still working long after the newlyweds’ 14 hours on their 10-acre property are up. All the Shawgos do is work, so Jeanine said she might get bored again when they close. Even so, Jeanine plans to kill her boredom not with another business, but with her girlfriends, her grandchildren and her mother, who is 91 and lives alone in Newport. “We’ll have our weekends free now that we can do things with family,” Jeanine said.
The Shawgos are still taking reservations for this year, with a discount of $2,000 off their $6,500 rate. As of Jan. 30, Foxwood House’s latest reservation is Aug. 2, but the Shawgos take reservations as late as the first week of October.
