Beacon Street

Minot-Herter House // c.1825

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Set along Beacon Street, one of the finest streets in Boston, this townhouse has uninterrupted views of the Boston Common and Public Garden. The house was built around 1825 after a large fire destroyed nearly all the homes on the block. Build it and they will come, and the upper-class Boston elite did! Attorney William Minot (1783-1873) purchased the land here as early as 1817, and is said to have hired Peter Banner, the English architect who designed Park Street Church, to design the first house on this site, which stood less than 10 years. Minot had a new home built in the 1820s and lived there until his death in 1873. By the late 1920s, Christian Archibald Herter lived here. Herter held a number of important offices in state and national government, serving as the Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, Governor of Massachusetts, and President Eisenhower’s Secretary of State (1959 to 1961). It was Herter who likely added the Federal Revival features on the house, including the porch, dormers and updated door surround.

Warren House // 1913

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This stunning townhouse on Beacon Street in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston was constructed in 1913 for George Eddy Warren and his wife Frances Knowles Warren. The home, designed by Parker, Thomas & Rice, is one of the more elegant Classical Revival townhomes in the city, with its symmetrical, prominent bowfront, piano nobile with full-height windows, classical lintels, and thoughtful use of brick and stone construction. George E. Warren was a coal dealer, who was selected to head the U.S. Army’s Raw Materials Division during WWI for his expertise. During the war he was in charge of the fuel and forage division, overseeing an important aspect of 20th century warfare, petroleum manufacturing and distribution. His wife Frances was the daughter of Francis B. Knowles, a co-founder of Rollins College in Florida, the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of Florida. Frances volunteered her time in Boston as President of the YWCA, progressing women’s empowerment and social justice in the city. After successive ownership, the townhome was acquired by Emerson College and combined with its neighbor on the interior. In 2000, the home was reverted back to a residence and houses two condominium units.