Apartment House

Ripley Apartments // 1925

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

One of the taller apartment buildings constructed on Beacon Hill in the inter-war period stands at 81-82 Beacon Street, providing residents with sweeping views of the Boston Common, Public Garden, and the ever-growing city of Boston. The ten-story building replaced two, four-story townhouses formerly on the site owned by members of the Thacher family. The two parcels were purchased by James H. Ripley of the New York-based real estate firm of Goggin & Ripley, who then hired Boston architect, Joseph Daniels Leland, who founded the firm of J. D. Leland & Company. The building was originally planned as a seven-story co-op but was later expanded to a ten-story tower with one apartment on each floor, making the building a luxury residence for its residents. The two-story limestone base with side entrance, flemish bond brickwork, iron balcony, and traditional double-hung windows all showcase how the Colonial Revival style works well with multi-family housing.

Hotel Lincolnshire // 1924

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

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.

Blenheim Apartments // 1898

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

As Brookline, Massachusetts, saw rapid development in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, developers redeveloped lots formerly occupied by single-family residences and built large, multi-family triple-deckers and apartments, specifically in neighborhoods in close proximity to train stations into Boston. This building, constructed in 1898 by local builder, John H. Pineo, for owner, Walter H. Whittemore as an investment property. The building contained six apartments as a double triple-decker with two units on each floors accessed by a central entry and stairwell. The building has been known as the Blenheim Apartments and blends Queen Anne and Colonial Revival styles into a single, eclectic composition. The large massing is broken up by both the undulating facades and roof with projecting bays, dormers and corner towers, along with the applied ornament of panels, dentils, corbels and broken pediment motifs. If all multi-family housing looked like this, people would not complain about density as much!

Tudor Apartments // 1887

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

Frederic Tudor (1783-1864) was a businessman and merchant known as Boston’s “Ice King” having founded the Tudor Ice Company and becoming a pioneer of the international ice trade in the early 19th century. Frederic Tudor lived in a house at the corner of Beacon and Joy streets in Beacon Hill, Boston, and after his death, the property was inherited by his widow, Euphemia Fenno and their children. By 1885, the old Tudor House was demolished and replaced by The Tudor Apartments, which was built between 1885 and 1887 to house twelve upper-class families who sought smaller living space as opposed to the typical townhouses in Beacon Hill. Designed by architect, Samuel J. F. Thayer, the nine-story Queen Anne/Romanesque Revival building features a brownstone base with brick walls above, combining the traditional Boston bowfront with late 19th century flair at the upper floors with the partial mansard roof punctuated with dormers and oriel windows. Thayer designed the Joy Street elevation with cascading bays to provide interiors with views of the Boston Common and ample natural light.


Hollander Apartment Buildings // 1892

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

These two stunning apartment buildings were constructed in the early 1890s in the Prospect Hill neighborhood of Somerville. Known as the Hollander Blocks after their original owner, Theodore Clarence Hollander, the two apartment buildings are some of the finest in the Boston suburbs. Both detached buildings follow a traditional three-decker block massing and form, but are decorated with varied siding, two-story columned porticos, and elaborate cornice. 

Drouet Block // 1896

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

Built in 1896, this handsome, four-story flatiron building at the corner of Bow Street and Somerville Avenue in Union Square, Somerville, was the largest tenement building in the city when completed. The property was developed by Charles Drouet, from plans by local architect, Aaron Hibert Gould. The block originally housed 37 apartments above six retail spaces at the street-level. The series of projections and an interior courtyard provided light and air into the apartments, which made them highly functional and desirable for families in the area. The building is more Colonial Revival than the 1892 Queen Anne style Richmond Apartments, also designed by Aaron H. Gould for Mr. Drouet nearby. The Drouet Block is a well-preserved example of late 19th century tenements in Somerville.

Richmond Block // 1892

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

The Richmond Block on Bow Street in Union Square, Somerville, is a historic and architecturally significant mixed use building. Constructed in 1892 as one of the substantial wood-frame buildings in the western section of Union Square, the Richmond was designed by architect Aaron Gould for Mr. Charles Drouet, who developed the Drouet Block, a historic flatiron building just years later. Designed in the Queen Anne style, this building is noteworthy for its corner tower, octagonal oriel bay windows, sleeping porches on the side facade, and polychromatic color scheme to highlight the many architectural details on the block.

The Highland Apartments // 1892

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

The Highland Apartments, on Highland Avenue in Somerville, is one of the city’s most architecturally distinguished and significant late 19th century apartment buildings. Richardsonian Romanesque in style, the building is constructed of brick with brownstone trimmings, a rounded corner tower with conical roof, and Romanesque arched entrances. The building even retains its name, “Highland”, carved in brownstone at the corner. The building contained 12 units, all with multiple windows and views of the adjacent park or ever-growing Boston from its hilltop location. The architect, Samuel Dudley Kelley, was a noted designer of apartment buildings at the time. The Highland remains an important, preserved example of late 19th century multi-family housing, and showcases how far we have fallen when designing such structures today. 

New England Fireproof Construction Co. Apartments // 1917

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

One of the most unique and architecturally pleasing buildings in Brookline has to be these apartments on Egmont and St. Paul streets that break the mold of traditional brick or wood-frame apartment houses. Built in 1917 by the New England Fireproof Construction Company as an example of how cheaper cement material can be used effectively and beautifully to design and construct high-quality housing. The company hired architect G. Bertram Washburn to design the buildings which utilize concrete block and cast concrete details with the facades embellished with pilasters capped with Corinthian capitals, engaged balusters, and modillioned and corniced entrances decorated with a lion’s head over each doorway. Additionally, a special touch is the recessed wells in the facade which not only break up the massing of the building, but provide additional light and air into the apartments inside. 

Temple Court Apartments // 1912

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

Constructed in 1912, Temple Court at 15 Lynde Street was erected on the site of two earlier buildings during a period of great population growth in Salem. The parcels here were acquired by Aroline C. Gove (1857-1939), a prominent local property-owner and developer between 1908 and 1911. Ms. Gove was a prominent Salem citizen and daughter of notable inventor and businesswoman Lydia Pinkham. With a business-oriented mindset like her mother, Aroline hired architect Harry Prescott Graves of Lowell to furnish plans for an apartment building on this site. Completed in 1912, the apartment building, known as Temple Court, included 36 units with two-, three-, and four-room suites with a live-in janitor. The building is unique for Salem as a courtyard style building, more common in Boston and Brookline. The building’s large mass is broken up by its setback with the U-shaped form and central landscaped courtyard, series of projecting octagonal bays, and multiple entrances. Temple Court was converted to condominiums in the 1980s.

Hotel Pelham // 1857-1916

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

Built in 1857 at the prominent intersection of Boylston and Tremont streets in Boston, the Hotel Pelham is said to have been the first apartment building of its type in America. Seen as a high-end apartment building, not like the slum-like tenements in New York and elsewhere in Boston, the units were like French-flats for medium-term renters, rather than short-term stays. The Hotel Pelham was developed by Dr. John Homer Dix, a doctor who took a keen interest in providing healthy accomodations for city-folk. The Hotel Pelham was designed by architect Alfred Stone, as an early example of the Second Empire style, with a French Mansard roof and stone facades. Just about a decade after the building was completed, Tremont Street (which runs along the side of the building) was set to be widened. This work would require the partial (and likely full) demolition of the Pelham Hotel. Rather than see his building face the wrecking ball, Dr. Dix, in 1869, had the Hotel Pelham slid off its foundation, and moved westward thirty feet to accommodate the expanded Tremont Street. This incredible feat of engineering was undertaken by John S. Blair, with architect Nathaniel Bradlee overseeing updates to the facades and interiors. The building would survive a gas main explosion in 1897, but succumbed to redevelopment during WWI, when the building was demolished for the present building on the site, the Little Building.

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.

Clements Apartment Building // c.1885

Buildings of New England1 Comment

Brookline is pretty great as you can find unique and well-preserved examples of nearly every type of building in almost every architectural style! Staying in Brookline Village, this apartment building stands out as one of the best panel-brick apartments I have seen. The property was developed in the mid-1880s by Thomas W. Clements, who served in the Army during the American Civil War and later settled in the Boston area working as a dentist. Thomas married Lydia R. Clements, who is much more interesting than her husband! She was a graduate of the Boston University School of Medicine and worked locally for years, but wanted more. In the spring of 1898, she set out with a party of men and women, determined to make their fortune in the gold fields of the Klondike. During the months long trek, all of the other women and some of the men in her party left the expedition before reaching their goal, but Lydia Clements persevered and became one of the first white women — possibly the first from the East — to cross the Chilkoot Pass into the Klondike region. She never made a fortune, but upon returning, she was more spiritual, and got involved in the occult philosophy of Prof. Charles H. Mackay and his West Gate School of Philosophy in Boston. She used her new learnings to go back to Alaska to make her fortune, but there is no indication that Clements ever did make her fortune. She did however, remain in Nome and elsewhere in Alaska for more than a decade, hiring men and mining tin and gold. She retained her Brookline residence here on Davis Avenue and travelled back and forth across the continent many times before returning to Brookline, before dying there in February 1927.

282 Beacon Street // 1927

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

One of the finest apartment-houses in Boston is this towering building at the corner of Beacon and Exeter streets in the Back Bay neighborhood. In 1926, real estate dealers Elliott Henderson and Roger B. Tyler purchased two townhouses on small lots and demolished them for the present structure. They hired the architectural firm of Blackall and Elwell furnished the plans for the 11-story Renaissance Revival style residence which included ten large apartments. The design is unique to the Back Bay with amazing cast stone details at the entries with rounded arch windows, fanciful brickwork, and spiral columns!