Thomas Aspinwall House // 1896

The Thomas Aspinwall House at 14 Hawthorn Road in Brookline was constructed in 1896 by architects, Ball & Dabney. The stately home was built for Thomas Aspinwall as a near copy of his great-grandfather’s 1803 Federal style house on Aspinwall Hill, the William Aspinwall House. Both residences feature a four-tier central bay with Palladian and lunette windows with a columned portico at the entrance. His grandfather, Dr. William Aspinwall graduated from Harvard in 1764 and studied medicine in Connecticut and in Philadelphia before beginning his medical practice in his hometown. He was one of the Brookline men who marched west and fought British troops as they retreated from Lexington and Concord in April 1775. He was put in charge of a hospital in Jamaica Plain during the Revolutionary War and later ran a hospital for smallpox victims in Brookline. His 1803 Federal style home was demolished in 1900 as the Aspinwall Hill area of Brookline was developed, but luckily, a replica remains on the other side of town, here on Hawthorn Road!