The Waterman Tavern sits at 486 Maple Valley Road in the Whaley's Hollow corner of Coventry, a handsome wood-framed colonial that has been in roughly continuous use since the mid-18th century. It was an important way station on the old Plainfield Pike, the inland route between Providence and the towns of eastern Connecticut, and the building's gambrel roof and central chimney are characteristic of the New England tavern type. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in the 1970s.
The tavern is privately owned and not regularly open to the public, but it is visible from the road and is the most photogenic of the cluster of 18th-century buildings in this part of Coventry. If you are touring the area's colonial sites alongside the Nathanael Greene Homestead, a drive past the tavern and a brief stop in Whaley's Hollow rounds out the picture of pre-industrial rural Rhode Island.