One of the most sumptuous Victorian-era homes in Dorchester can be found at 94 Ocean Street, this is the Clark-Cottie House. The residence (and rear stable) was built in 1890 from plans by famed architectArthur H. Vinal, who designed many other Shingle style and Queen Anne homes in the surrounding neighborhood. The first owners of the mansion were Evelyn and Edward Clark, who after a few years, sold the property to Edgar Cottle, president of the Curtis & Pope Lumber Company. The three-story Queen Anne style mansion features a rounded corner tower, varied shingle siding, shingled porch, and the intact, charming stable at the rear.
Located on Ashmont Street in the Ashmont Hill neighborhood of Dorchester in Boston, this handsome Colonial Revival style residence was one of many large homes constructed here at the end of the 19th century. This house was built by 1894 for owner Franklin King and rented to tenants for supplemental income. Franklin King was part owner of the E & F King Company, a major paint and stain manufacturer in Boston. Franklin died in 1898 and the property was inherited by his son, Samuel Gelston King, who continued to rent the home. A notable renter of the house was Harold Murdock, a cashier and amateur historian and author who wrote various books of everything from the American Revolution to the Reconstruction of Europe. The architect is said to be Clarence Blackall of Cambridge, which makes sense as this house is clearly the work of a trained architect. Symmetrical in plan, the center-hall residence features a preserved entry portico, hipped roof, and detailed dormers.
Chansonetta Stanley Emmons (1858-1937) was born in Kingfield, Maine, and was one of the great women photographers in the 19th and early 20th century, often depicting domestic life and New England scenes. The young Chansonetta Stanley grew interested in photography after her brothers’ (Francis E. and Freelan O. Stanley) dry-plate printing invention, they also invented the steam-powered automobile known as the Stanley Steamer. She married James Nathaniel Whitman Emmons in 1887 and in 1894, James hired architect Henry McLean, to design a residence for him and Chansonetta, this lovely homeon Harley Street on Ashmont Hill. The couple occupied the house until 1898, when James died of blood poisoning at the age of 41. Chansonetta sold the home and moved to Newton, where her two brothers lived and operated their business. The house blends Queen Anne and Colonial Revival styles and originally had a conical roof over the corner rounded bay. The roof was replaced with a flat roof at about the time of the large balcony and extended dormer.
From the 1780s until 1870, almost all of Ashmont Hill (west of the present train station) was a farm, with the large farmhouse dating to about 1720, located at the corner of Washington and Welles streets, now the home to the Codman Square Branch of the Boston Public Library system. The farm was owned for a time by General Henry Knox. Sometime before 1850, the estate and mansion came into the possession of the Honorable John Welles, who died in 1855. The property would eventually be deeded to John Welles’ grandson, George Derby Welles, who was then just 26 years old and living in Paris with his wife, Armandine V. Derby. Welles wasted no time in developing the property through his agent, Boston Attorney Edward Ingersoll Browne. Streets were laid out and house lots were platted and sold, with some early properties built with much of the neighborhood developing by the turn of the century. The old Knox-Welles farmhouse would be razed by 1889, but the remainder of the neighborhood has since become a landmark neighborhood of Victorian-era homes. This mansard double-house at 67-69 Ocean Street dates to around 1872 and is one of the earliest properties in the area. Blending the Second Empire and Stick architectural styles, the handsome double house is said to have been designed by architect Luther Briggs for George D. Welles and rented to tenants.
Located next door to Ms. Matchett’s house on Chatham Street in the suburban Longwood neighborhood of Brookline, Massachusetts, you will find this very unique example of a Colonial Revival style single-family home. Built by 1901 for lawyer Edwin G. McInnis (sometime spelled McInnes) and his wife, Mabel, the house is high-style Colonial Revival with symmetrical facade, rustication, two-story Corinthian pilasters framing the bays, Palladian window, and Federal style entry with fanlight transom. No records of the architect could be located sadly.
One of the more exuberant and ornate homes in Roxbury’s Washington Park neighborhood is this charmer on Howland Street. The eclectic house was built in around 1894 for Ellen S. Johnston from plans by local architect Timothy Edward Sheehan and stands out for its preserved exterior in a neighborhood where many homes are covered in later siding, obscuring the ornate details underneath. Details include: swag and garland applied ornament, two bays at the facade (one polygonal and one rounded), a Colonial Revival style porch, and central rounded dormer. Wow!
Once located at the entrance to the Hutchings-Pfaff Mansion, this small stone gatehouse is all that remains of a great Roxbury estate. Built of locally quarried Roxbury Puddingstone decades after the main house was completed, the Victorian Gothic style cottage surprisingly survived the subdividing of the large property and was sold as a private home in the early 20th century. It is uncommon to see these types of outbuildings survive into the 21st century, so I hope to see this charming cottage survive another 150 years!
Henry Hubbard Fitch (1833-1888) was born in Cornish, New Hampshire, but made Roxbury, Massachusetts his home. He moved to Boston at an early age and later entered into business with Francis V. B. Kern under the firm Kern & Fitch, working as a conveyancer. By 1873, he was also a justice of the peace, notary public, and was Boston manager of the Equitable Mortgage Company. In about 1870, he and his wife, Eliza Anne, had this charming Second Empire style cottage built in the Washington Park neighborhood of Roxbury, a fashionable part of the “suburbs” at the time. They would later relocate, before Henry died in 1888 at the age of 55. The house is one of the best preserved in the neighborhood and a survivor from the wrecking ball that destroyed much of Washington Park.
One of the finest Richardsonian Romanesque style mansions in America is this stunner at the corner of Beacon and Hereford streets in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood. Built in 1889, the mansion was commissioned as a private residence for Robert Chamblet Hooper (1849-1908) and his wife, Helen Angier Ames Hooper. Helen’s father, Frederick Lothrop Ames one of the wealthiest men in Massachusetts and major benefactor to in the town of Easton, funded and oversaw construction of the Ames Free Library and the Easton Town Hall both by H. H. Richardson in his namesake Romanesque style. It was likely her family’s prevalence for the style that led to her own home in Boston’s Back Bay to follow suit. The firm of Andrews and Jacques are credited with designing the stately mansion which in 1889, cost over $100,000 to build. Robert Chamblet Hooper was treasurer and later president of the Constitution Wharf Company. A noted dog fancier, he was owner of “Judge” (also known as “Hooper’s Judge”), credited as the ancestor of the Boston Terrier breed. So we have the Hooper’s to thank for Boston’s iconic mascot! In 1913, the building transferred from the Hoopers to Mabel Slater, daughter of painter William Morris Hunt (and niece of architect Richard Morris Hunt) an eccentric widow and inventor. Mrs. Slater is credited with developing an ice-cooled refrigerator, a sleeping bag that doubled as a garment used by soldiers in World War I, and a doll head with movable eyes. Mabel routinely left open a rear door of the mansion in order to encourage the poor to find their way into the kitchen for shelter and food. She had a one-story ballroom built at the rear of the mansion in 1914. The house was converted into 6 condominium units in 2016 and restored at the exterior thanks to the architecture and design studio, Hacin.
Buildings of New England 