Nearly a decade after the heirs of Peter Bent Brigham and his wealthy estate erected the Peter B. Brigham building in the Bulfinch Triangle Historic District of Boston, they would again develop more of the block the trust owned, building this stately commercial building. Much of the Peter Bent Brigham Building was rented to the Heywood Brothers & Company and Wakefield Company, both furniture makers. Heywood Brothers was established in 1826, Wakefield Company in 1855, with both firms producing wicker and rattan furniture. The companies merged in 1897 and moved into this building constructed by the Brigham estate that same year. The building was designed in a unique version of the Beaux Arts and Classical Revival styles by relatively unknown architect Stephen Russell Hurd Codman (1867-1944), a first cousin of more famous architect and interior designer, Ogden Codman. Stephen Codman opened a firm with the French-born architect, Constant Desire Despradelle, designing some landmark buildings in Boston together. The Heywood Brothers & Wakefield Company Building on Portland Street is a distinctive granite-faced building standing six-stories tall with engaged box columns spanning four floors and dividing the bays of the facade.
Buildings of New England 
9/22/24
I want to buy this building. It still has such it’s charm for me. Do the views match? I would live there if it looked out over the Charles River or some such rich historic moment. I admire Vetrivius as inspiring us: Strength, Utility, Beauty; or some such trinity. I offer an Roman prayer the unknown masses of skilled-tradesman, each of time and traditions, if tools and resources: Ubi Sunt?
I would enjoy hearing what, say, a Donald Trump, would comment on such a building, if from Trump must know his architecture, since the election should be on everyone’s mind. My dying wish of my home state is that it remember it’s puritanical, capitalist, enlightenmet, – ism, ism, ism roots. I enjoy the tastes of architecture that correllates with the values of Mozart. I kavech to you, good Author, that the loving masses know what Rennaissance means, but not Enlightment, the era of General Washington, REP/ OBS (Of Blessed Memory). Trump spoke about limestone being so porous; “the red paint stained the granite. It will be in the limestone for one-hundred years.”
I dearly miss Framinham, if talking to people who understood what I mean when I speak of by the Puritans, Anne Bradstreet, if John Greenleaf Whitter – greates Boston Brahmin name of all time, no?
Just writing to say thank you. I haven’t even read the entry yet. If you please, what came before and after Beaux-Arts?
Respectfully,
David Loring, York, Pennsylvania a la Framingham, MA
LikeLike