Tudor Revival

Longwood Towers // 1925

Buildings of New England1 Comment

No trip to Longwood in Brookline would be complete without checking in on one of the finest multi-family housing developments of New England… This is Longwood Towers. The development was originally built in 1925 from plans by architectural/engineering firm Kenneth DeVos and Co. who built three near-identical developments in the early 1920s: Detroit (1922), Brookline (1925), and finally Philadelphia (1928). The complexes were all originally called Alden Park Manor. Kenneth DeVos worked with local architects for each project to oversee construction details and furnish interior detailing as needed. For Brookline, he hired Harold Field Kellogg, who earlier served as the first director of the Boston Housing Authority. The design is Tudor Revival in style with towers connected by social spaces and a lobby linking the towers with a dining room for residents, a ballroom, lounge, day care facilities, barber and beauty shops, and a garage. The idea of a parking garage incorporated into an apartment complex was a very new idea when these were built, so much so it was written about as a new amenity for future developments to emulate. Another interesting tidbit about the complex is that it was featured in architectural journals in 1926 as it solved the “garbage problem” with trash chutes on each floor which terminated down in a brick incinerator (no longer in use). The Longwood Towers in Brookline were eyed as innovative and set trends for later developments, here’s to hoping future developers take cues to what makes good design and finishes rather than just profit with so many new boxy, uninspiring 5-over-1 apartment buildings going up all over the region.

A. M. Donna end House // 1928

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

Abraham Malcolm Sonnabend was born in Boston on December 8, 1896, the son of Esther and Joseph Sonnabend. Sonnabend graduated from Harvard College in 1917 in order to enlist at the outbreak of the Great War. At the end of World War I, Sonnabend joined his father’s real estate organization. He married Esther Lewitt in 1920, and by 1927, he had increased his real estate holdings to a net worth of $350,000. Just before the 1929 stock market crash, Sonnabend hired Boston architect Sumner Schein to design this Tudor Revival style home, on a site formerly occupied by a larger Queen Anne style residence. Built in 1928, the Tudor Revival house features clinker brick walls with cast stone trim and a two-story castellated bay all capped by a slate roof. The enterprising A. M. Sonnabend would eventually outgrow this modest Tudor home after he got into hotels as investments. In 1944, Sonnabend (with seven partners) acquired a package of Palm Beach, Florida hotels for $2.4 million including the Biltmore, Whitehall and the Palm Beach Country Club. He would sell the Biltmore to Conrad Hilton for a massive profit. In 1956, Sonnabend created the Hotel Corporation of America (HCA) and grew the business to new heights. The 1928 Sonnabend House is significant architecturally and as the first purpose-built property by the late-developer.

William Lloyd Garrison School // 1910

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

Tucked away in a residential neighborhood, the William Lloyd Garrison School in Roxbury’s Washington Park neighborhood is among one of the more successful school building designs of the early 20th century. Built in four stages between 1910 and 1929 to service a growing neighborhood over time, the school is named for abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, who formerly lived in a home relatively closeby. The school complex consists of several different sections organized around a central courtyard and joined by passageways, all designed by the extremely underrated architectural firm of Newhall & Blevins in the Tudor style. Following the period of Urban Renewal in the neighborhood, the school district built contemporary schools and deaccessioned older schools. Today, the former William Lloyd Garrison School houses apartments.

Ashton Croft Mansion and Carriage House // c.1892

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

Tucked behind the Jesse Lee Memorial Church on Main Street in Ridgefield, you will find this stately Queen Anne/Tudor Revival estate. The ‘Ashton Croft’ Manor House, now called Wesley Hall, is part of the Jesse Lee Memorial United Methodist Church complex and it has been modified several times blending two distinct styles into a single, pleasing composition. This house was originally constructed by Henry and Elizabeth Hawley circa 1892 in the Queen Anne style. The house was later sold to Electa Matilda Ziegler, a wealthy New York City widow in 1912, who reconfigured the structure to include half-timbering on the gables and upper story walls in the Tudor Revival style. She spent summers at a mansion in Darien, Connecticut, and would sell her Ridgefield property to Sanford H.E. Freund, a New York City attorney. The local order of Odd Fellows bought the estate from the Freund family in 1956. Three years later, the organization sold most of the property — retaining the carriage house for its lodge — to Jesse Lee Methodist Church, which planned to eventually build a new church there to replace the old one at Main and Catoonah Streets. Today, the entire former Ashton Croft estate is owned by the local Methodist Church and is known as Wesley Hall.

Rockefeller Hall // 1934

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

In the early 1930s, a U.S. Navy Radio Station at the Otter Cliffs on Mount Desert Island had become dilapidated and Navy funds were not forthcoming for repairs. When John D. Rockefeller Jr. suggested that it be removed, the Navy agreed to include the station in his donation to Acadia National Park, provided that he would build an equally good receiving station nearby. In the midst of the Great Depression, and short on funds, the government accepted the swap. Rockefeller set aside land at the tip of the Schoodic Peninsula, about five miles away across Frenchman Bay, at Winter Harbor. Rockefeller, wishing the station’s buildings to be compatible with others designed for the park, retained Grosvenor Atterbury, the New York architect who designed the park’s gatehouses, to come up with plans for the radio station. It opened in early 1935 and for several years served as an operation center and military housing. After the naval base was closed in 2002, the National Park Service acquired the land and established the Schoodic Education and Research Center (SERC). The SERC campus is managed by the nonprofit Schoodic Institute and the NPS in a public-private partnership as one of 19 NPS research learning centers in the country. They restored Rockefeller Hall (as it became known) in the early 2010s and the stunning architecture can really shine today. The building is a Welcome Center to the institute.

West Gouldsboro Village Library // 1907

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

One of the few libraries in Maine built in the Tudor Revival style can be found in the quaint coastal town of Gouldsboro. This library was built in 1907 from plans by Maine architect Frederick L. Savage after members of town sought a community space where they could meet and check out books. The small one-story building sits upon a tall fieldstone foundation and with a stuccoed exterior above. The entrance consists of a single door flanked by sidelight windows topped by an elliptical hood, above which sits within the half-timbered gable front. The small library was in operation until 1956. It reopened briefly in 1990, but closed again. It is owned by the West Gouldsboro Village Improvement Association. Historic library buildings are the best!

Hastings House // c.1941

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

Many neighborhoods in New England held on to historical revival styles even when the International style and Mid-Century Modern homes began to proliferate all across the region. Some owners (even today) prefer traditionally designed houses to blend into their surroundings and historical context. This charming gingerbread Tudor Revival style house in Fairfield is one of them! The Hastings House was built in 1941 and designed by the powerhouse design couple of Cameron Clark (architect) and Agnes Clark (landscape architect) who designed and renovated properties all over Fairfield. The house is notable for its use of stucco with half-timbering, steeply pitched roofline, red tile roof, and more Colonial-inspired door treatments.

Nesmith-Kent Cottage // 1891

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

One of the most iconic summer “cottages” in Kennebunkport’s late 19th-early 20th century summer colony is the Nesmith-Kent Cottage, located next door to the often photographed St. Ann’s-by-the-Sea summer chapel. The cottage was built for Julia and Mary Nesmith, the daughters of John Nesmith a wealthy industrialist and textile manufacturer from Lowell MA. The sisters named the cottage “The Pebbles”, and spent their first night there on July 24, 1891. The half-timbered shingled house stood at the edge of the ocean near a former War of 1812 fortification. The sisters sold the property in 1910 to Arthur Atwater Kent, prominent radio manufacturer based in Philadelphia, who invented the modern form of the automobile ignition coil. Kent renovated the cottage extensively, increasing its size, and renamed “The Pebbles”, “At Water’s Edge” in a cheeky play on his last name. In 1919, he expanded again, purchasing a lot adjacent to his mansion which was the old fort constructed to protect the ships moored in the harbor during the War of 1812. In early 1919, workmen uncovered a few bones of what was calculated to be a seven-foot-tall man and two skulls of white men that had clearly met their end at the hands of Native people; one pierced by an arrow and the other scalped. The Kennebunkport Historical Society has one of these skulls in their collections. Today, the Nesmith-Kent Cottage is owned by the St. Ann’s-by-the-Sea congregation as their rectory.

Aaron Cutler Memorial Library // 1924

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

In his 1917 will, Aaron Cutler of Hudson, N.H. left his estate to family and friends with his remaining estate to be bequeathed “for the purpose of the erection, furnishing and maintenance of a Public Library, upon the express condition that the citizens of said town give land upon which to erect the same. Said land to be located within one-quarter of a mile of the town hall. Said Library to be of brick and slate. And to be known as “The Aaron Cutler Memorial Library.” His town of Hudson recently erected a memorial library, so he sought to fund a library in an adjacent municipality. Land was donated in Litchfield for a new library there and architect William M. Butterfield furnished plans for the building. The library was completed in 1924 and exhibits Tudor/English Revival design, unique for the town.

Henry Thatcher Fowler House // 1903

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

Henry Thatcher Fowler (1867-1948) was born in Fishkill, New York, on March 4, 1867. He graduated from Yale in 1890 and received his Ph.D., also at Yale, in 1896. After stints teaching at Yale, Norwich Academy, and Knox College, Professor Fowler came to Brown and was hired as Professor of Biblical Literature and History; he was chairman of that department until 1932. Soon after arriving to Providence to accept his professorship at Brown, Henry and wife, Harriett, hired the local architectural firm of Martin & Hall to design a new home for them a few blocks away from his work. The house blends Tudor and Shingle styles with the ogee entrance at the porch, flared shingled overhangs on each floor, and a prominent gable facing the street.