Boston Real Estate

William Slattery Tenements // c.1893

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It is not always the architect-designed, high-style buildings that give a place character. The North End is a neighborhood almost entirely built of working-class tenement housing, but its density, immigrant history, and vernacular, make it one of the most visited and unique in the city. Michael Slattery, an Irish-born teamster, and his son, William, a grocer, developed this handsome block of tenement housing on North Margin Street in the North End neighborhood of Boston. The row of apartments stands out for its elevated design elements, including the projecting metal oriels with decorative wreath and swag motifs, arched openings, and brick corbeling at the cornice. The apartments here were rented by the Slattery family until the mid-1920s when the buildings were sold to Italian-Americans who continued to rent the buildings to lower-income residents. There is something about the North End’s vernacular that is so charming.

Daniel T. Kidder House // 1884

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This charming Shingle/Queen Anne style house is located on Sumner Street in Newton Centre, a street of fine suburban houses built for businessmen who commuted into Boston. This house was built in 1884 for Daniel Tufts Kidder (1852-1941), a glass dealer. Daniel got his start under the employ of Hills, Turner & Harmon, jobbers of plate, window and mirror glass, and manufacturers of mirrors, eventually working his way up to salesman and later as president of the consolidated company, Boston Plate and Window Glass Co. It is believed that Mr. Kidder used antique and imported glass in his home when it was built. The house remains well-preserved and characteristic example of the fanciful Victorian styles.

Kennard Estate // 1907

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A significant house and grounds are tucked away, hidden off Dudley Road in Newton, Massachusetts. This is the Kennard Estate. Frederic Hedge Kennard (1865-1937) was born in Brookline and attended Harvard College. He did graduate work for a time at the Bussey Institution and the Lawrence Scientific School, and entered the employ of Frederick Law Olmsted, the noted landscape architect, with his office in Brookline. By 1906, he decided to open his own landscape architecture office, opening locations in Boston and Philadelphia. He would purchase this expansive wooded property, and had this house built by 1907. He laid out the grounds, creating paths and gardens on the property and planted native trees. It is unclear who designed the house, sadly. Mr. Kennard was also a noted ornithologist (an expert on birds) and would host visiting scholars at his home, walking the grounds and studying birds there. After his death in 1937, the property was inherited by his son, Harrison Eisenbrey Kennard, and ultimately willed to the City of Newton upon his death in 1982. Since then, Newton Parks and Recreation have maintained the house (though they could be doing more to preserve it), and opened the grounds as Kennard Park, a free public park comprised of wooded trails and streams.

Lovejoy Wharf // 2017

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Photo courtesy of RAMSA

New buildings in Boston rarely are contextual and so often take no cues from their surroundings, but Lovejoy Wharf, one of my favorite 21st century buildings in the city breaks that mold. Completed in 2017, the contemporary building is clearly modern, but takes important cues in the design and materials to relate it to the surrounding industrial context surrounding the site. The Lovejoy Wharf condominium building was designed by the great Robert A.M. Stern Architects and incorporates red brick facades, stacked bay windows, and a glass curtain wall, which effortlessly blend old with new. A glass tower breaks free from the masonry mass at its corner, which leads into the denser, more modern West End buildings while the eastern side closely follows the old Schraft’s Candy Factory (now Converse Headquarters building) brick industrial style. Additionally, the developer, Related Beal, took a gamble by not including parking in the facility, hoping the unit owners would instead use local public transportation (or walk), it seems to have been a success and promotes healthy urbanism. What do you all think of this contemporary building?

Boston Flatiron – The Boxer Hotel // 1900

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The interesting street-layout of the Bulfinch Triangle area of Boston created some oddly shaped triangular building lots which for decades, saw only small, modest wood-frame structures built upon them. By 1900, Boston’s own Flatiron Building (built two years before New York’s more iconic example) was constructed on this site and it has been an icon ever since. The structure was built by ownerCharles Pelham Curtis III (1860-1948), who was born in Boston and graduated from Harvard Law School and became a police commissioner and attorney in the city before moving into real estate development. He hired architect Stephen Codman to design this commercial block, which was rented out to local businesses and professional offices. The building has been home to a hotel for a number of decades, with a major renovation undertaken beginning in 2000, 100 years after the building was constructed. Three floors were added to the top of the original six-story, which are Modernistic in design with large expanses of windows within three center bays that align with the bays of the original building and which are defined by brick piers. The hotel today, The Boxer Hotel, perfectly blends the history of the building with modernity and style. What a gem of a building!

Dr. Jenks Apothecary Shop // c.1860

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Who doesn’t love a good flatiron building?! This charming three-story with Mansard roof building is located in the Bulfinch Triangle district of Boston. The triangular-shaped building was built around 1860 as an apothecary shop for Dr. Thomas Leighton Jenks (1829-1899), a doctor who was born in Conway, New Hampshire, but left for Boston while still a teenager. When the Mexican-American War broke out in 1846 he enlisted in the Navy, where he served for three years in the hospital ward of the frigate U.S.S. United States. Upon returning from the war, Jenks attended Harvard Medical School, and wrote his thesis on Syphilis. Dr. Jenks apprenticed in a building on this site under Dr. Samuel Trull. He likely redeveloped or modernized the 1850s building, adding the mansard roof by the 1860s. During the Civil War, Dr. Jenks served as a front line surgeon. After returning home, he grew tired of the medical profession, and got involved with local politics. He was elected as an alderman, Massachusetts state representative, and in later years he earned appointments as Chairman of the Boston Board of Police, and Chairman of the Board of Commissioners of Public Institutions. He tragically collapsed and died in 1899 at a Boston courthouse. As a tribute to his birthplace, Dr. Jenks made a provision in his will for the funds necessary to build a public library in Conway, New Hampshire, which is still in use today. Somehow, the old Dr. Jenks Apothecary Shop has survived all this time as the city grows and changes all around it. The building saw life later as a restaurant and offices.

The Last Tenement // c.1870s

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Originally built in the 1870s, and largely remodeled in the early 1900s, this charming building has been known locally as “The Last Tenement” of the old West End of Boston. Once part of an unbroken a row of 30 brick tenements along the east side of Lowell Street, this building typified much of the West End of Boston, a vibrant and dynamic immigrant neighborhood. Dwarfed by larger, modern apartment towers and highway off-ramps, this stand-alone building is a survivor, and should really be preserved! Here is a little history on The Last Tenement that I found. The building was originally built as a three-story residence just after the Civil War by furniture dealer, George M. Rogers. The building was rented to four families in the 1880 census, showing the diversity of the region with 20 people residing in the building of Irish, English, and German-Jewish backgrounds. At the turn of the century, an elevated rail line was laid out down Lowell Street. After WWII, the neighborhood would see a terrible demise, that has been widely told. City leaders effectively considered the vibrant immigrant neighborhood a slum, and in an effort to redevelop it to bring back middle-class families (and their tax dollars) handed much of the neighborhood to developers to start over, with little more than lip service for the displaced. This building, now with an address of 42 Lomasney Way, was occupied for some time by “Skinny” Kazonis, a low-level Mafia associate of the Angiulo Brothers, which was a leading gang in the North End until the Winter Hill Gang decided to run rackets in the area. The property sold, and residential units have been rented and the building maintained, with the assistance of a billboard for additional income for the owner. The Last Tenement showcases the strength and resilience of the old West End and will hopefully remain as a reminder of the vibrant neighborhood that was razed and replaced with mediocrity.

William Potter Rental House // 1889

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William W. Potter, a shoe manufacturer and businessman, and his wife, Isabella Abbe Strickland Potter, lived in the Longwood section of Brookline and became active in the surround areas development in the last decades of the 19th century. William bought land off Kent Street and began to lay out house lots, becoming a developer overseeing construction of stately Queen Anne Victorian rental properties marketed to upper-middle-class residents. For this house on Francis Street, he commissioned architects George Rand and Bertram Taylor, who were known for producing stylish residential designs for the middle class in the Boston area. The massive property was a duplex, providing units to two lucky families! The building has just about every hallmark feature of the Queen Anne style including: the conical roof on a rounded corner bay, a complex roofline, asymmetrical plan, varied siding/materials, and applied ornamentation. In the 1920s, the house was owned by Simmons College, and used as a boarding house. Luckily, the property was restored and now is one of the finest residences in the neighborhood.

Orlando & Ellen Alford House // 1883

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Orlando Hiram Alford (1840-1908) was an industrious and hardworking Vermonter who settled in the Boston area to make his wealth. He was a member of Bliss, Fabyan & Co., a large drygoods dealer, and would also become a director of the First National Bank, the City Trust Company, and the Franklin Savings Bank. In manufacturing, he serves the role of director of the Bates Manufacturing Company, the Merrimac River Towing Company, the Columbian Manufacturing Company, the Cordis Mills, and the Thorndike Company (among others). From his many positions and roles, he and his wife Ellen, were able to afford a house lot on Kent Street in the neighborhood between Longwood and Brookline Village. The Alford House, a stunning example of the Queen Anne style remained in family until after Ellen’s death in 1929, when it was purchased by the Boston Hospital for Women as a nurse’s residence. It was later used as apartments and was clad with vinyl siding, obscuring much of the original wood trim detailing. In the 2000s, later owners sought to demolish this house, which served as a rallying cry for neighborhood residents who understood the importance of the house and its context with surrounding lots. After the demolition delay process lapsed, they petitioned for a local district designation, effectively preserving the house for more generations to come! The Lawrence Local Historic District has since provided protection for houses in the area, but does not require a homeowner maintains or keeps up a property in a certain condition. Hopefully the Alford House will be restored soon!

Lawrence-Christian House // c.1855

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Another of the early homes of the affluent Longwood subdivision of Brookline, Massachusetts is this painted brick house which dates to the 1850s. The house was developed by Amos A. Lawrence, who developed much of the neighborhood, renting out suburban houses to wealthy Boston-area residents. In 1866, Lawrence sold the property to Samuel S. Allen of Roxbury and it would change ownership a half-dozen times in the next century. The property was added onto and modernized a few times, notably during the ownership of Henry A. Christian, MD, the first Chief-of-Medicine at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital over the Muddy River in Boston. The streamlined late-Colonial Revival look with vestibule side entry, windows, and shallow hipped roof are all likely later alterations from the 1850s house.

Hutchings-Pfaff Gatehouse // c.1884

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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!

Cushing-Gay Townhouse // 1862

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The Cushing-Gay Townhouse at 170 Beacon Street in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston stands out as one of the most unique and pleasing early remodeled homes to look at. 170 Beacon was built by 1862 as one of two contiguous houses (168-170 Beacon) built for John Gardiner Cushing and his younger brother, Robert Maynard Cushing. John Gardiner Cushing built this house, which was originally a Second Empire style home similar to the dark gray residence nextdoor. The Cushing Family owned the property until 1894 and the property was sold to Helen (Ellis) Brooke, the the wife of Rev. Stopford Wentworth Brooke a British politician and later a minister of the First Church (Unitarian) of Boston. The Brooke’s moved back to England in 1900 and this home was sold to Eben Howard Gay, a banker and note broker. Eben’s wife of less than two years died just before he purchased this house on Beacon Street, she was just 26 years old. As a bachelor, Eben Gay hired architect and interior designer Ogden Codman, Jr., to remodel the 1860s house, giving it the present Adamesque front façade and new interiors to provide a setting for his collection of Chippendale furniture. The after being bought and sold numerous times following Gay’s financial struggles and selling of his prized home, the Cushing-Gay Townhome was purchased by the German Government in 1966 and is today the Goethe Institute, Boston, a cultural center and language school for the German language.

Skinner Mansion // 1886

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One of the best early examples of Classical Revival residential architecture in Boston can be found on Beacon Street in the Back Bay, at the Skinner Mansion. Built in 1886 for dry goods merchant Francis Skinner (1840-1905) and his wife, Eliza Blanchard (Gardner) Skinner (1846-1898), the house exhibits a light stone facade with carved detailed panels and fluted pilasters, stone parapet with urns at the corners and a decorative wooden entrance with ironwork. Eliza was the sister-in-law of Isabella Stewart Gardner who herself lived on Beacon Street until erecting what is now the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, in the early 1900s. The Skinners hired architects Shaw & Hunnewell to furnish plans for their Boston townhouse, and they did not disappoint! Today, the mansion is occupied by medical offices, but retains the residential charm and character as it is located in a local historic district.

Henry Parsons King Mansion // 1907

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One of the finest townhomes in the Back Bay of Boston is this stunning residence on Beacon Street. The house was constructed in 1907 for Henry Parsons King (1867-1913) and his wife Alice Spaulding King following the destruction of a house previously on the lot. Henry King was an extremely wealthy businessman who went to Harvard College before working his way up the ranks to become the president of the Whittier Machine Company and the Boston manager of the Otis Elevator Company. For their Back Bay mansion, the couple hired the esteemed firm of Little & Browne to design the stately home with its full bowed facade. Henry King died in October of 1913 and his funeral was in the home, with his body laid under the main circular staircase inside (which according to sources is one of only two free-floating marble staircases in the United States!) Alice King and their only surviving child, Henry Parsons King, Jr., continued to live at 118 Beacon. Alice died in 1938 and the family home was purchased the next year by the Fisher Business School (later Fisher College). The transaction was reported in the Boston Globe, which noted that 118 Beacon was “well known for its interior woodwork, paneling and flying staircase of polished marble,” and that the school would install “modern lighting and furnishings, including a cafeteria for student use.” Fisher College would purchase more buildings in the area and the former King Mansion is now home to the Fisher College Library.

Derby Townhouse // 1886

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Hasket Derby (1835-1914), was the grandson of Elias Hasket Derby, a prominent trader in Salem, MA., who was thought at one time to be the richest man in the United States. Hasket married Sarah Mason and the family lived in Boston. Dr. Hasket Derby was a renowned opthamologist and had this townhouse built in the Back Bay of Boston in 1886. He hired architect William Ralph Emerson, who ditched his prototypical Shingle style for the urban townhouse in the Colonial Revival style. The townhouse exhibits a brownstone swans neck pediment at the entry, three-story rounded bow, dentilled cornice and brick pilasters framing the bays. Its an often overlooked house in Back Bay, but so very special.