Samuel D. Garey (1825-1891) was born in Auburn, Maine, and worked as a carriage manufacturer there before moving to Newton, Massachusetts to use his carpentry skills building houses in the rapidly developing Boston suburb. He became a prominent builder and developer in Newton Centre, residing there and building this mini-mansard house on Gibbs Street before 1870. Garey likely rented the house out to tenants for supplemental income, with the family maintaining the charming cottage into the 20th century.
One of the finest Second Empire style residences in Newton, Massachusetts, can be found on Herrick Road in Newton Centre. This is the John H. Sanborn house, built before 1870 for John H. Sanborn, a Boston broker and commission merchant who also served as a Representative to the Massachusetts General Court. The imposing residence is a two-story house based on a rectangular plan, and capped with a bellcast Mansard roof of gray, fish-scale patterned slates. The focal point of the design is the four-story, towered entrance pavilion which dominates the facade.
This house in Georgetown Center, Massachusetts dates to the 1860s and appears to have been built for Milton G. Tenney, a shoe manufacturer. By the early 20th century, the home was owned by the third member of the Root family to practice medicine in Georgetown. The first, Dr. Martin Root, established a practice in 1827, serving the community for more than 50 years. His son, Dr. Richmond B. Root, owner of 24 North Street (featured previously), was in turn the father of Dr. Raymond Root (1882-1958), owner of this fancy Second Empire style dwelling. In addition to his private practice, Dr. Raymond Root was a school physician for many years, and served as Town Clerk from 1937 to 1944. The house is Second Empire in style with a mansard roof, window mouldings and two-over-two windows, but features a Colonial Revival portico with what may possibly be a Federal-period entry of fanlight with sidelights, salvaged from his father’s home when that house was renovated.
Who doesn’t love a good flatiron building?! This charming three-story with Mansard roof building is located in the Bulfinch Triangle district of Boston. The triangular-shaped building was built around 1860 as an apothecary shop for Dr. Thomas Leighton Jenks (1829-1899), a doctor who was born in Conway, New Hampshire, but left for Boston while still a teenager. When the Mexican-American War broke out in 1846 he enlisted in the Navy, where he served for three years in the hospital ward of the frigate U.S.S. United States. Upon returning from the war, Jenks attended Harvard Medical School, and wrote his thesis on Syphilis. Dr. Jenks apprenticed in a building on this site under Dr. Samuel Trull. He likely redeveloped or modernized the 1850s building, adding the mansard roof by the 1860s. During the Civil War, Dr. Jenks served as a front line surgeon. After returning home, he grew tired of the medical profession, and got involved with local politics. He was elected as an alderman, Massachusetts state representative, and in later years he earned appointments as Chairman of the Boston Board of Police, and Chairman of the Board of Commissioners of Public Institutions. He tragically collapsed and died in 1899 at a Boston courthouse. As a tribute to his birthplace, Dr. Jenks made a provision in his will for the funds necessary to build a public library in Conway, New Hampshire, which is still in use today. Somehow, the old Dr. Jenks Apothecary Shop has survived all this time as the city grows and changes all around it. The building saw life later as a restaurant and offices.
The Boston and Lowell Railroad was established in 1830 as one of the first rail lines in North America. The first track was completed in 1835, and freight service began immediately connecting Boston to the newly established town of Lowell, which had just 6,400 residents at the time (compared to Boston which had 10x that). The original Boston depot was a modest structure, but after the Civil War, it was decided that a new station connecting two of the most important industrial cities in Massachusetts, should be built. Architect Edgar Allen Poe Newcomb and his father’s firm, L. Newcomb & Son, was selected to design a new station on Causeway Street. The French Second Empire masterpiece was built between 1871-1878. Inside, the concourse was lined with oak walls and marble flooring. The depot was added onto in 1893 and incorporated into a Union Station of multiple former lines, and ultimately demolished in 1927 for the first North Station.
The Bulfinch Triangle area just south of the TD Garden in Boston is a cohesive and historically preserved district of similar commercial and industrial buildings of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Somehow, the area has been preserved largely intact besides some sites serving as surface parking lots and some incompatible infill developments. Historically, the area was a tidal flat, before the land here was filled beginning in 1807, with Causeway Street as the northern boundary. The area’s namesake, architect Charles Bulfinch, designed the street layout for the landowners, and the area was filled with material taken by lowering Beacon Hill and Copp’s Hill. Development was fairly slow until railroad companies built depots in the area around present-day North Station, many of which connected the area to cities north of Boston. These new train lines boosted the value of the surrounding land, with manufacturers and developers building factories and hotels in the area. This handsome structure on Causeway Street was built in 1870 by William G. Means, a manufacturer who also invested in real estate in Boston. He commissioned architect Samuel J. F. Thayer to furnish plans for the apartment hotel in the Second Empire style with a mansard roof and window lintels of diminishing detail as the floors increase. In later years, the Arlington House Hotel changed hands and names, later known as the Eastern Hotel and Hotel Haymarket. Stay tuned for more Boston history in this series highlighting the North Station and Bulfinch Triangle district!
“Maple Shade” is a historic, Second Empire style summer cottage located at 1 Red Cross Avenue in Newport, Rhode Island. The house was built in 1871 from plans by George C. Mason, a prominent local architect who designed many summer homes for summer residents in the late 19th century. He even lived in a home adjacent to this house! Maple Shade was built for John Doughty Ogden and his second wife, Mary C. Moore. John originally married Mary’s older sister Margaret, but remarried after Margaret’s death in 1845. The house gained attention again in 1934, when it served as the venue for the wedding reception of John Jacob Astor VI and Ellen Tuck French, then owned by Donald O. Macrae. The house, like many other former estates in Newport, has since been converted into condominiums, but retains its architectural grandeur and presence in town.
One of the finest commercial buildings in downtown Saugerties, New York, is the Whitaker Block, a landmark Second Empire style structure from the years following the American Civil War. The structure dates to around 1870 and was first owned by an E. Whitaker and was mixed use with retail at the street and offices above. Additionally, the building was home to the local chapter of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) a fraternal social organization. The three-story with mansard roof building stands out for its architectural details and integrity which largely remain intact to this day.
Boston is ever-changing and while change can be good, there have been some major architectural losses. This trend of redevelopment is not new however, as this single site on Beacon Street has seen two major losses, all before 1918! This lot on Beacon Street was originally home to Hancock Manor, a landmark Georgian mansion built between 1734-1737 for the wealthy merchant Thomas Hancock (1703–1764), and later inherited and occupied as the home of United States Founding FatherJohn Hancock, yes, that John Hancock. In 1863, the Hancock Manor was sold at public auction and was purchased for $230. The house was demolished within days. While the building was torn down, souvenirs of it were actively sought as it fell. To replace it, two of the finest homes ever built in Boston were constructed on the site, from plans by elite Boston architect, Gridley James Fox Bryant. The double Second Empire style homes were first occupied by wealthy merchants, James Madison Beebe (the house on the left) and Gardner Brewer (right). In 1916, plans for the extension of the Massachusetts State House necessitated a taking of these (and other nearby) properties. These two houses were razed by 1917.
I wonder if the Hancock Manor would have survived to this time, would preservation prevail to save it?
This charming mini-mansard summer cottage is located in the coastal neighborhood of Salem Willows, in Salem, Massachusetts. The neighborhood developed in the 1870s-1900s as a summer colony for middle-income families who wanted a second home away from the hustle-and-bustle of urban living in favor of ocean breezes. The cottage likely dates to the mid-1870s as one of the earliest summer homes in the neighborhood, and historic maps show it was owned by a P. Dempsey. It appears this is Patrick Dempsey (1821-1902), an Irish immigrant who settled in Lowell, Massachusetts, making it big as a liquor dealer and saloon-keeper. The Second Empire style cottage has a partially enclosed porch, but retains much of its original character and is located right on the water with sweeping views of the Atlantic Ocean.
Buildings of New England 