Built on the once 3,000-acre estate of Ward Nicholas Boylston’s country house in Princeton, Massachusetts, this historic farmhouse was built as the old Villa became a year-round residence. When Ward Nicholas Boylston (1747-1828) died in 1828, his Princeton estate was inherited by his grandson, Dr. Ward Nicholas Boylston (1816-1870), who further developed the property. By 1830, Ward Boylston built this Greek Revival style farmhouse where he operated the property as a gentleman’s farm, with agricultural fields, dairy cows, and out-buildings. The farm was one of the largest in central Massachusetts and was known around the state. When Dr. Boylston died in 1870, his son, Ward Nicholas III, inherited the property but eventually sold it out of the family in 1918. Boylston Villa and the adjacent Boylston Farmhouse are separately owned, but retain their architectural and historical significance thanks to great stewards to maintain the properties.
Ward Nicholas Boylston (1747-1828) was born as Ward Hallowell, in Jamaica Plain, Boston. At the age of 21, he took the name of his uncle, Nicholas Boylston, a wealthy Boston merchant who had no direct heir. A year later, he inherited his uncle’s estate and soon thereafter left for the next 27 years, taking up residence in London, and traveling across Europe and the Middle East. In 1800, Ward Nicholas Boylston inherited 3,000 acres of land from his uncle, Moses Gill, a wealthy merchant and acting Governor of Massachusetts from 1799 to 1800, when he died in office. Moses Gill was a slaveowner and when he moved to Princeton in 1767, town records indicate that he brought three “Negro servants” (slaves) with him. Interestingly, Gill thought enough of those whom he enslaved, as he bought expensive gravestones for their burial in the graveyard in Princeton, all three of which remain here to this day. They were: Nero, Flora, and Thomas. Ward Boylston spent summers at his uncle’s country estate until it was eventually demolished for his new Federal style country retreat, said to have been designed by Asher Benjamin, an architect then in the employ of Charles Bulfinch. The small brick villa is notable for its Palladian arches and walls inside lined with French Dufour wallpaper. Ward Nicholas Boylston’s name lives on through the names of Boylston Street in Boston named after him, as is the town of Boylston, Massachusetts, and Boylston Hall at Harvard University. He died in 1828 and was buried in the family tomb in Princeton. After his Nicholas’ widow, Alicia, died in 1843, the estate passed into the possession of Ward’s grandson, Dr. Ward Nicholas Boylston (1816-1870), who practiced medicine in Boston. Within a year after coming into his inheritance, the Dr. Boylston quit his career and settled at Boylston Villa, where he spent the remainder of his life and improved the estate with outbuildings.
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.
One of my favorite buildings on Boylston Street in Boston is the ten-story Colonial Theater Building, a landmark Classical Revival style structure of stone. Built in 1899, the Colonial Theater replaced the original Boston Public Library building (1855) which was demolished by 1898, and relocated to Copley Square. The Colonial Theater was designed by famed theater architect, Clarence Blackall and is said to be the oldest, intact theater in Boston. The theatre first opened its doors for a performance of Ben-Hur on December 20, 1900 with a sold out show. Ben-Hur operated with a cast and crew of 350 people and featured eight live horses on stage in full gallop during the chariot race scene, with the play being so mechanically and technically extraordinary it was featured on the cover of Scientific American. While cheekily named the Colonial Theater, the interior theater spaces were anything but. The spaces originally contained murals and Baroque style finishes, many of which remain today. Beyond the 1,700-seat theater, the building contained between 250-300 professional offices. The building is owned by Emerson College, who underwent a massive restoration project of the building with Elkus Manfredi architects. Allowing the oldest Boston theater to shine again!
On Boylston Street overlooking the Boston Common, this historic building with two distinct parts is not photographed as much as some of its neighbors, but it is an important visual reminder of the period of growth and development in the city in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This is the Walker Building, an early office building that was constructed beginning in 1891 in two phases by owner Joseph W. Walker. Mr. Walker hired the architectural firm of Winslow & Wetherell to design the building, which was finished in the Romanesque Revival style with a notable cornice with nine-bay arcade of arched windows and ornate wreath and swag motifs. A major tenant in the building was the Boston office of the S. S. White Dental Manufacturing Company, the largest dental manufacturing company in the world. Less than a decade after the six-story Walker Building opened, Joseph Walker purchased and razed the parcels nextdoor and again hired the same firm (at this time renamed Winslow & Bigelow), to expand the Walker Building, building a ten-story addition in a similar style. The second Walker building housed piano company showrooms and offices along with professional offices of numerous architects and professionals. The Walker Building is now owned by Emerson College, and is used as classrooms, computer labs, and study spots for students with the dining center and bookstore in the former retail spaces.
The Steinert Building on Boylston Street in Boston is one of the city’s most iconic and mysterious buildings. The Beaux Arts style building was constructed in 1894 from plans by architects Winslow & Wetherell and contained three floors of display rooms, three floors of teaching studios and practice rooms. The building is arguably best-known for the 650-seat Steinert Hall, a basement concert hall constructed 35′ under ground and considered by some to be one of the most perfect concert halls, acoustically, in the U.S. The building was constructed as the national headquarters for the prestigious firm of M. Steinert & Sons, one of the largest and finest music stores in New England. Established in 1860 by Morris Steinert, a Bavarian musician, musical instrument collector and founder of the New Haven Symphony (originally Steinert’s Family Orchestra). The company was expanded under his second son, Alexander Steinert, who had the Steinert Building in Boston built, requiring a music hall to showcase musicians and their products. The subterranean concert hall closed in the 1940s, following the 1942 Cocoanut Grove fire, the third-deadliest building fire in American history, which resulted in deaths of 492 people. This tragedy inspired an entirely new set of building and fire codes throughout the city; which ultimately would close Steinert Hall, as it had only one means of egress, making it too cost-prohibitive to bring the theatre into compliance. The building was long-operated as a piano showroom, but closed in 2017 and has been vacant ever-since. The basement music hall remains frozen in time, awaiting a new life.
