During his career, Bradford was known as a designer and builder of Italianate-style residences for Newport summer residents. At least three of his designs utilized a Gothic Revival vocabulary, most blatantly Rockry Hall (1847–48), modeled on Design III from Andrew Jackson Downing's pattern book Cottage Residences (1842).[2]
Today, he is most remembered for his design of Chateau-sur-Mer, the Wetmore family residence on Bellevue Avenue. In addition to being Bellevue Avenue's first great mansion, it is also credited with introducing the Second Empire style to Newport (although the original mansard has since been replaced).[1]
