Brookline Real Estate

Sears-Amster Cottage // c.1865

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Prior to 1850, the area today known as the Longwood neighborhood of Brookline remained largely farmland on the banks of the Muddy River. In the first half of the 19th century David Sears (1787-1871) and Amos Lawrence (1814-1886), both prominent Boston businessmen, bought up large tracts of what had been Judge Sewall’s estate. The arrival of the Brookline Branch Railroad (now the MBTA Green Line D branch) served as an impetus to develop the area more fully. David Sears and Amos Lawrence developed houses in present-day Longwood and Cottage Farm and rented the homes to friends and family. One of the rented houses built and rented by David Sears is this Second Empire cottage which dates to the 1860s. The house was long-rented to wealthy families until the Sears heirs sold the house to Nathan Leo Amster and his wife, Estelle Dreyfus. Nathan L. Amster was a railroad executive who eventually became president of the Manhattan Railway Company. When the purchased the cottage, the Amster’s hired Boston architect Clarence Blackall to renovate and “modernize” the home, which added the Classically inspired elements. The couple did not appear to live in the house long, as they spent most of their years in their Fifth Avenue NYC residence. The Sears-Amster Cottage remains an important early house in the Longwood development of Brookline.

Houghton House – Yawkey Family Inn // 1890

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Built on the site of an earlier house at 241 Kent Street in Brookline, this grand, Queen Anne style house has seen a life as a single-family home, fraternity house, and ultimately, the Yawkey Family Inn, a temporary residence for patient families undergoing procedures and treatments at Boston Children’s Hospital. A landmark example of the Queen Anne architectural style, the handsome near-symmetrical residence has paired conical towers at the facade, a brick first floor, paneled chimneys, and elaborate carvings in the entry portico, second-story bays, wall surfaces and gabled dormer. Planning for the new mansion began in 1889 when owners, Harriet and Andrew Jackson Houghton, owner of the Vienna Brewery in Boston, hired architect, James Templeton Kelley, to furnish plans for their new suburban mansion. Sadly, Andrew Houghton died in 1892, shortly after the house was completed, and Harriet remained here until her death in 1925. After this, the property was sold to the Beta Upsilon Association for use as a Fraternity House for the Beta Theta Pi Fraternity of MIT and later as a fraternity house for a Northeastern University frat. In 2009, the property was purchased, renovated and expanded to the rear as the Yawkey Family Inn, ensuring its preservation and remaining as a quieter neighbor to the surrounding residents than its previous use.

Potter-Leland House // c.1888

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Francis Street in Brookline, Massachusetts, has some of the finest Queen Anne Victorian residences in the Boston area. This is the Potter-Leland House, built by 1888 by William Potter, a wealthy shoe manufacturer and businessman who developed rental housing in the neighborhood not far from his house on Kent Street. Various exterior wall textures, irregular massing, and turned posts on the front porch contribute to the Queen Anne character of this house, but the real showstopper is the rounded bay projection with three, 25-over-2 (yes you heard that right) curved sash windows! The property was later purchased by Herbert M. Leland, a broker.

Charles P. Flagg House // 1899

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Located on Sewall Avenue in Brookline, Massachusetts, the Charles P. Flagg House exemplifies upper-class single-family housing built in the late 19th century that has been added onto and converted into multi-family housing to serve a growing city. Charles Partridge Flagg (1851-1911) was a real estate developer and head of the D. F. Flagg & Co., a wholesale liquor company his father started in Boston. He purchased the former Dexter property, subdivided the estate, and hired architect Julius A. Schweinfurth to design a home for his family. “Jule” Schweinfurth was long-associated with the firm of Peabody & Stearns of Boston, which in the late 19th century, was one of the premier architectural offices in the United States, but when he was not offered a partnership offer by his bosses, he established a new firm under his name. For the Flagg House, Schweinfurth blended the Shingle, Queen Anne, and Arts and Crafts architectural styles with a unique asymmetrical roofline, wide overhanging eaves with cross brackets and exposed rafter tails, consistent shingle siding, and a two-story polygonal oriel with domed roof at the corner. The Flagg House was moved forward on the lot to facilitate a rear addition and completely renovated in 2011, transforming it into a seven-unit condominium building with garage and elevator. This example of “gentle density” is exactly what communities should allow for, to preserve the character at the streetscape but provide additional housing.

George B. Dexter House // 1885

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An expression of the Shingle style in all her beauty, the George B. Dexter House on Sewall Avenue in Brookline was built in 1885 both as a residence and a billboard advertising the owner’s business, really. The residence was built for George B. Dexter (1854-1935) a partner in the Dexter Brothers Company a paint and stain manufacturer that was a favorite of architects in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For his Brookline residence, George Dexter hired architect S. Edwin Tobey to design this Shingled masterpiece with continuous shingle siding with rounded bays and a shingled piazza to showcase the stain products of his company. According to articles, Dexter also stained and painted the interior a variety of colors to showcase the wide range of options his company had. George Dexter would move to Pill Hill neighborhood in a new home just a decade after having this residence built, likely caused by the development of apartments and commercialization in the Coolidge Corner area by the turn of the century. The Dexter House was converted to a two-family in the 1920s and today has three condominium units, with owners clearly taking great pride in this significant residence.

George P. Davis House // 1893

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This Colonial Revival style single-family house on Emerson Street in Brookline Village, was built in 1893 on the former Emerson Estate, that was subdivided by the heirs of Elijah Emerson as Brookline Village filled in during the late 19th century. This house was seemingly built for Elijah’s daughter, Sarah C. Emerson Davis, and her husband, George Peabody Davis from plans by Boston architect, Olin Wesley Cutter. Of particular note, the Davis House features a symmetrical facade with round entry portico, Palladian stairhall window with leaded glass, and pedimented dormers, with the center dormer in a swan’s neck pediment. The oddly proportioned pilasters with tiny Ionic capital on the corners of the house were great to see as well!

Emerson-Arnold Double-House // c.1875

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Elijah Carleton Emerson (1807-1888) was a wealthy Boston merchant, making his fortune as Director of the Second National Bank and President of the Middlesex Horse Railroad. In his late 30s, he purchased land in Brookline Village and established his estate on the land that is now Emerson Park in 1846. The bucolic setting of his estate included a pond, boathouse and adjacent cottage, but as the surrounding area continued to develop with easy access to Downtown Boston, Elijah Emerson began to develop his estate. Emerson began to build residences on his land for supplemental income. This handsome Stick style double-house was built around 1880 and rented by Mr. Emerson and was eventually occupied by his granddaughter, Tirzah and her husband, George Francis Arnold. The residence features a mansard roof, decorative brackets and applied stickwork, and a handsome porch with turned posts.

Elijah Emerson House // 1846

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Elijah Carleton Emerson (1807-1888) was a wealthy Boston merchant, making his fortune as Director of the Second National Bank and President of the Middlesex Horse Railroad. In his late 30s, he purchased land in Brookline Village and established his estate on the land that is now Emerson Park in 1846. The bucolic setting of his estate included a pond, boathouse and adjacent cottage, but as the surrounding area continued to develop with easy access to Downtown Boston, Elijah Emerson began to develop his estate. Emerson began to build residences on his land for supplemental income. After his death in 1888, Emerson’s two daughters, Sarah Davis and Tirzah Snell Arnold, maintained the property but sold it to the Town of Brookline in 1907. Brookline officials originally sought to build a new library on the site, but ultimately built it on Washington Street in 1910. The Emerson house and carriage barn were moved across Davis Street from their original site and Emerson Park was established. Emerson’s granddaughter, Mrs.Katharine Snell and her husband, inventor, Cullen B. Snell moved into the relocated house. The Elijah Emerson House (and carriage house at the rear) is a great, well-preserved example of a suburban Boston residence designed in the Gothic Revival style.

Graham Apartments // 1904

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This handsome, and unique example of a three-decker in the English Revival style is located on a corner lot at 128 Davis Avenue in the Emerson/Brookline Village neighborhood of Brookline, Massachusetts. Built in 1904 from plans by architect and genealogist, J. Gardner Bartlett, whose work focused on colonial New England and the English origins of colonial families. Trained as an architect at MIT, he gave up architecture for genealogy, but still occasionally designed buildings in the Boston area. The building here was developed for Richard Graham, an Irish immigrant, who along with his wife, operated a laundry business in the village. The use of a shingle and stone entrance porch and entrance bay with stucco half-timbering and diamond-pane casement windows stand out architecturally as one of the few examples of a three-decker built in this style in New England.

John D. Sturtevant Double-House // 1892

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John Dean Sturtevant (1816-1889) was born in New Hampshire and became engaged there in local woolen mills, quickly growing into advanced management positions. He operated woolen mills in New Hampshire, Maine, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, and settled in Brookline where he had access to other states via excellent rail service. When he died in 1889, John’s heirs inherited their late-father’s properties, and began to develop them as Brookline filled out in the last decades of the 19th century. This handsome double-house at the corner of Cypress and Waverly streets was built in 1892 by the Sturtevant Estate, who rented the property to two families of wealthy residents. The Sturtevant Double-House is a landmark and exceptionally preserved example of the Queen Anne style, with varied siding, asymmetrical forms, complex roofline with dormers, and applied ornament in the form of carved panels.