These paired rowhouses at 1-3 Claremont Park in the South End were built by 1874 as speculative housing. Between 1922 and 1928, 3 Claremont Park was purchased by a twenty-something year old Anna Bobbitt Gardner, and she opened a studio in the home, teaching Bostonians how to play the piano. In 1932, Anna Bobbitt Gardner (1901-97) became the first African American women to be awarded a bachelor’s degree from the New England Conservatory of Music. Her studio, Pianoforte Studio bloomed in popularity among Black and White Bostonians, and she rebranded the school as the Boston Academy of Musical Arts, adding four more studios in the area. She would later acquire the adjacent house at 1 Claremont Park and expanded the school. She went on to manage ‘Colored American Nights’, featuring African American musicians at Boston Symphony Hall, and produced local radio and television programs to boost the African American audience in classical music. After her death in 1997, the New England Conservatory has annually granted a musician the Anna Bobbitt Gardner Lifetime Achievement Award, showing her impact on the arts in Boston.
