Arts & Crafts

Sippican Tennis Club // 1908

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The Sippican Tennis Club in Marion, Massachusetts, was established in 1908 for the purpose of athletic exercise and a place for social gatherings in town. Historically, the town’s population surged in the summer months when wealthy city residents would flock here and stay in their waterfront mansions for a few months of the year. This large hipped roof rectangular building was constructed just before the club opened in 1908, and it is flanked by eight tennis courts. Boston architect (and Marion summer resident), Charles Allerton Coolidge, a principal in the well known firm, Shepley Rutan and Coolidge, was one of the original shareholders as well as the architect for the building. The building is constructed of concrete and features paired, tapered columns which run the perimeter of the structure, supporting a deep porch. The broad elliptical arch and exposed rafters add to the Craftsman style flair of the building.

Frederick B. Cutler Cottage // c.1903

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One of the most interesting houses in Marion, Massachusetts, is the Frederick Cutler Cottage, at the corner of Water and Lewis streets which was split in the 1970s to create two homes. The Cutler Cottage was originally built around 1903 for Frederick Barker Cutler (1861-1946), partner in the firm of Stetson, Cutler & Company in Boston, a building materials company who sold everything from long lumber and shingles to lime. For his summer cottage in Marion, Cutler hired noted Boston architect Herbert Langford Warren, founding principal of Warren, Smith & Biscoe, to furnish plans for the Arts and Crafts style dwelling of shingles, stone and brick. In the 1970s, the owner separated the house into two detached dwellings and moved them to separate lots. Both parts of the Cutler Cottage have since been renovated and further expanded, but retain much of their original qualities.

Delano House // 1902

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This early 20th century home on Cottage Street in the South Coast community of Marion, Massachusetts, was built in 1902 for Hattie F. Delano and Walton S. Delano, a descendant of the great Delano family in Massachusetts. Walton worked in nearby Wareham at A. S. Gurney and Company, dealers in coal, grain and flour. The house is unique as it is in the American Foursquare form, a type of home built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The hallmarks of the style include a basically square, boxy design, two-and-one-half stories high, usually with four large, boxy rooms to a floor, a center dormer, and a large front porch with wide stairs. This example stands out for the shingle siding, flared eaves and rubblestone foundation, a nod to the more rustic summer cottages built in Marion in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

St. Rita’s Roman Catholic Church // 1916

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A Roman Catholic parish was established in the South Coast/Cape Cod area by 1830 in Sandwich, where a large glass company employed a number of Irish immigrants. Over the course of the 19th century, several mission churches were established, and eventually a second parish, St. Patrick’s, was established in Wareham in 1911. Soon after, a mission was established in nearby Marion to serve the summertime Catholic community there, where many Irish laborers worked on the coastal estates there. A parcel of land was acquired by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Fall River and noted ecclesiastical architect Matthew Sullivan, was selected to furnish plans for the small church. Matthew Sullivan was a partner in the firm of Maginnis, Walsh and Sullivan, which was widely known for its ecclesiastical work, where he too specialized in religious buildings. St. Rita’s Roman Catholic Church is an example of an early 20th century chapel in the Craftsman style, characterized by eaves marked by long projecting rafter tails and a bold entry framed by Tuscan columns, but with the unique use of brick walls.

Ralph Waldo Emerson School // 1904

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The Ralph Waldo Emerson School in Newton’s Upper Falls village was built in 1904 and dedicated a year later serving as the main school building in the industrial village. The brick school building was constructed adjacent to the Levi C. Wade School, a large Second Empire style wood-frame school constructed in 1869. The Wade School was razed for a 1950s addition to the Ralph Waldo Emerson School. The substantial school building was designed by the prominent architectural firm of Hartwell Richardson & Driver, at a time when the Upper Falls Village continued to expand due to the well-established cotton manufacturing mills and the Gamewell Fire Alarm Company. The large structure is hard to classify architecturally, as it blends elements of the Renaissance Revival, Arts & Crafts and Classical Revival styles, but with its massive chimneys, hipped roof with projecting eaves, and large arched windows, the building is an architectural statement for the relatively vernacular industrial village it is located in. By the end of the 20th century, school enrollments and consolidation of village schools saw the closing of the Emerson School, but luckily, the building lives on after it was converted to condominiums, with the 1955 addition now serving as a day care center, a senior citizen room and gymnasium-hall for the community. 

Cairncroft Cottage // 1892

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Set into the trees in Chocorua in Tamworth, Cairncroft stands as one of the many stately “cottages” built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries for city-dwellers to escape the hot summers for the fresh air and views of the White Mountains of New Hampshire. This cottage was built for Emil Christian Hammer (1823-1894), who migrated to the
United States from Denmark in 1840, where he became a prominent businessman in several Boston business, including Waltham Manufacturing Company. In the mid-1880s, he founded the United States Watch Company in Waltham, one of the most important such companies in the country. From his success and connections, Emil was appointed by President Abraham Lincoln as Danish consul in 1864. Emil purchased the land here in 1886 and built a barn and ice house before having his home and nearby stone cairn built on the grounds; the latter is likely what gave the property its name. Cairncroft was designed by Boston architect, Edwin James Lewis, Jr., an expert at Arts and Crafts and Shingle style designs. After Emil’s death, just two years after his cottage was completed, the property passed to his wife, Martha. Her daughter, Cynthia Hollis and also an accomplished artist, inherited it later and eventually passed it to her husband, John Charles State Andrew, professor of theology at Harvard and Boston
University.

Chadwick Cottage // 1891

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One of the many summer cottages tucked away in the trees in the Chocorua Colony in Tamworth, New Hampshire, the Chadwick Cottage was built in 1890 for prominent gynecologist, Dr. James Read Chadwick (1844-1905). Dr. Chadwick was introduced to Chocorua during his summer visits to the White Mountains, where he and his family stayed at local hotels as early as 1876. He purchased seventeen acres of forest nearby Chocorua Lake in 1890 on which he erected this house and its outbuildings the following year. The design of the buildings is attributed to Boston architect, Clarence Howard Walker, who was affiliated with the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts and designed this rustic cottage to fit within the forest, enhancing the landscape surrounding it. Dr. James Chadwick was a professor at Harvard Medical School and a pioneer nationally in the field of gynecology, where he played a key role in organizing the American Gynecological Society. In 1905, while vacationing at his Tamworth cottage, Dr. Chadwick died following a fall from a piazza roof. The Chadwick Cottage was sold a year later to Lillian and William G. Farlow, a world-renowned authority on fungi and other non-flowering plants, likely a friend of the late Dr. Chadwick. The cottage and its associated out buildings are lovingly preserved over a century later and exemplify the best of summer cottages in New Hampshire.

Intermont Estate – President Grover Cleveland Summer House // c.1905

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Tucked into the hills of Tamworth, New Hampshire, Intermont was the beloved summer home of President Grover Cleveland and his wife Frances as a respite from the stress and pollution of ordinary life. The Clevelands purchased the property, which built from two farms joined together, in 1905 at a time when Tamworth and the Chocorua area of the White Mountains were rapidly developing into a summer enclave. The old farmhouse was modified and converted into this stately summer cottage, fitting for a President. Architecturally, Intermont reflects the early 20th century rustic movement with a white clapboard exterior, cross-gabled rooflines, and wraparound porches on three sides, opening onto sweeping mountain views. Cleveland spent his final summers here fishing, hunting, and writing before his death in 1908. The property remains one of the finest summer residences in New Hampshire and is lovingly preserved inside and out.

St. Andrew’s in the Valley Church // 1927

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The St. Andrew’s in the Valley Episcopal Church in Tamworth, New Hampshire, is an architecturally significant early 20th century rustic chapel that has been lovingly preserved and expanded by its congregation. The church was envisioned by Reverend Frederick C. Cowper (1851-1929), who was called to gather congregants in the summer colonies in the White Mountains to fund and build a new chapel. Rev. Cowper was granted land in the Whittier area of Tamworth and worked with Boston architect, Walter H. Kilham, who had a summer home in Tamworth, to draw up plans for the new church. Kilham is said to have based his designs off of the 11th-century Church of Saint Helena in Austerfield, England, just in the local vernacular with rubblestone acquired from the land in New Hampshire and not cut stone blocks like that of St. Helena. The church exhibits elements of the Arts and Crafts style with the stucco wing and thoughtful stone bell tower.

Boston Dwelling House Company Houses – Woodbourne Neighborhood // c.1912

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Nestled in Jamaica Plain, the Woodbourne neighborhood is one of Boston’s most notable early twentieth-century planned residential neighborhoods, developed in early 20th century on land that had once been part of large country estates. Inspired by Garden City planning principles, the neighborhood was designed to harmonize with its natural landscape, featuring curving streets, mature trees, and thoughtfully arranged green spaces rather than a rigid urban grid. Its architecture reflects the predominant architectural styles of the period, notably showcasing modest housing in Arts and Crafts and Colonial Revival styles with many of the original buildings designed by the firm of Kilham & Hopkins off Southbourne Road. The development envisioned and funded by The Boston Dwelling House Company, a who’s who of well-connected Boston residents who envisioned the development as an attractive and healthy suburban community for middle-class families with convenient access to streetcar and rail transportation, with the grounds laid out by the Olmsted Brothers. Woodbourne remains remarkably intact today, offering a rare glimpse into the ideals of early suburban planning amidst the somewhat hectic piecemeal development and layout of streets in other parts of the city.

Hotel Lincolnshire // 1924

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The Hotel Lincolnshire is a stunning eight-story apartment building on the west side of Charles Street in Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood. The building was developed in 1924 by William Coombs Codman, a real estate developer and member of the Beacon Hill Associates, a group of preservationists who bought and resold properties in the neighborhood with the aim to limit unsympathetic development. The group helped the Beacon Hill Flat area, which was a higher concentration of former stables west of Charles Street, a gentrified artist and residential enclave. The Hotel Lincolnshire was marketed as a residential apartment hotel, with furnished and unfurnished apartments with greater amenities than a traditional apartment building. Beacon Hill resident and architect, Richard Arnold Fisher, was responsible for designing the building, where he employed the use of courtyards (similar to his design nearby at 101 Chestnut Street) and walls of brick with cast-stone details. Of special interest is the use of perforated terracotta panels laid in half-round forms and the stone pinnacles at the parapet.

Studio Building, Beacon Hill // 1914

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The Studio Building on Charles Street in Boston’s historic Beacon Hill, is a unique, Arts and Crafts style building constructed of brick with stucco walls and a red tile roof. Built in 1914 by William Coombs Codman, a real estate developer and member of the Beacon Hill Associates, a group of preservationists who bought and resold properties in the neighborhood with the aim to limit unsympathetic development. The group helped the Beacon Hill Flat area, which was a higher concentration of former stables west of Charles Street, a gentrified artist and residential enclave. Codman hired the young architectural firm of Loring & Leland, to design the Studio Building, which in its original configuration, contained three stores at the ground-level, two dwellings, offices and artist studios with oversized windows. Just years after the building was completed, Charles Street was widened in 1920, chopping ten feet off the facades of all buildings on the west side of Charles Street, including this building. Charles G. Loring was retained by Codman to oversee the renovations to the new facade and storefront, likely replicating what was once there. After 1920, the building was largely occupied by apartments for single women of means and remains one of the neighborhood’s most iconic and enchanting buildings.

Fleur-De-Lys Studios // 1885

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The Fleur-de-Lys Studios is of the most architecturally significant and unique buildings in New England and can be found on Thomas Street in the College Hill section of Providence. Built in 1885 and a vivid expression of the Queen Anne style and showing the emergence of the Arts and Crafts movement movement in America, the handsome building blending is the result of a partnership between artist, Sydney Richmond Burleigh and architect, Edmund R. Willson as a dedicated creative hub for working artists, a purpose it still serves today under the stewardship of the Providence Art Club, who received the deed of the property in 1939 by Burleigh’s widow. Its design draws heavily on medieval English and Tudor Revival influences, with a striking half-timbered façade, stucco panels, carved heads as hanging pendants, and projecting casement windows that break dramatically from the surrounding colonial streetscape. What truly sets the structure apart, however, is its richly symbolic ornamentation—allegorical figures representing painting, sculpture, and architecture adorn the exterior. More than a century later, the Fleur-de-Lys Studios remains both a National Historic Landmark and a living workspace, preserving its original spirit as a place where art and architecture are inseparably intertwined.

Charles Smith House // 1914

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The neighborhood of Touisset in Swansea, Massachusetts overlooks Mount Hope Bay and was largely developed in the early 1900s by Fall River real estate dealer Jacob Fash who worked with local architect, Edward I. Marvell to lay out house lots and likely design houses for middle-class residents. One of the more fashionable houses on the waterfront is this residence, built in 1914 for Charles Smith, an inventor who patented rollers and machinery to lay gold-leaf. Soon after moving into this house, he filed for bankruptcy and the house was sold at auction to William R. Randall of Providence. The house can be categorized as an example of the Arts and Crafts style with elements of Tudor Revival and Spanish Colonial Revival styles, all reaching their height of popularity in the early 20th century. The use of stucco walls, stone porches and red terracotta roofing tiles enhances its curb appeal.

Francis Gardner House // 1903

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This house on Gardner’s Neck Road in Swansea, Massachusetts, was designed in 1903 by Fall River-based architect, Edward I. Marvell, for Francis L. Gardner, a descendant of the Gardners for whom Gardner’s Neck is named. Francis Gardner’s father, Leland, was a successful market gardner who farmed locally with the use of greenhouses, shipping fresh produce and other goods to Fall River and transportation to other nearby cities. This business continued under his sons, Francis and Chester until about 1925, when they began selling land on Gardner’s Neck for development. Francis’ house is an excellent early 20th century residence that blends multiple styles popular at the turn of the 20th century in a square form.