Brookline

Benjamin and Almira Pitman House // 1900

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Benjamin Franklin Keolaokalani Pitman (1852-1918) was born in Hilo, Hawaii, to parents Benjamin Pitman, a Salem businessman, and Kinoʻoleoliliha, high chiefess in the Kingdom of Hawaii. After the sudden death of Kinoʻoleoliliha, Benjamin Pitman Sr. remarried and sent his children to attend schools in Boston. Benjamin F. K. Pitman would meet and marry Almira Hollander Pitman (1854-1939), a suffragist who was instrumental in working for women’s suffrage in Hawaii. The couple purchased a house lot in the exclusive Cottage Farm neighborhood of Brookline, and hired architect Edwin J. Lewis, to design a home for their family. Early atlas maps and photos show that the house was originally clapboarded on the front and rear elevations with large brick end walls containing the chimneys. The facade was given a brick veneer sometime in the 20th century. After Benjamin died in 1918, Almira had a small gambrel-roofed cottage built in the rear yard for her son to live in. The residence is one of the finest Colonial Revival style homes in the area.

Frederick Sears Cottage // 1851

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The Frederick Sears Cottage in the Cottage Farm neighborhood of Brookline, Massachusetts, is significant as one of the major surviving examples of Gothic Revival domestic architecture in the Boston area. In 1849, wealthy Bostonian, David Sears (1787-1871) laid out parks and squares in the Cottage Farm neighborhood, and built houses for himself and his children. His own house, erected in 1843, was the oldest, soon followed by houses for his four daughters, Ellen d’Hautville, Harriet Crowninshield, Anna Amory, Grace Rives, and son, Frederick. The Frederick Sears Cottage is the only surviving Sears residence in the Cottage Farm neighborhood. Frederick Sears‘ cottage was built in 1851, though he did not occupy the house long, as just three years after he and his wife married in 1852 to move into this home, Marian died. The house was inherited by Frederick Sears Jr. , and was acquired by Boston University in 1960, who began to expand into this neighborhood. They maintain the significant property very well. The Sears Cottage is an excellent example of the Gothic Revival style in stone with scalloped vergeboards, quatrefoil motifs, corner quoins, and projecting entry. The house is constructed of Roxbury Puddingstone and is said to have been designed by George Minot Dexter.

Frederick and Erna Gibbs House // 1936

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Built at a time when Colonial Revival and Tudor Revival styles dominated the suburban landscape of the Boston area and elsewhere, the Frederick and Erna Gibbs House on Chilton Street in the Cottage Farm neighborhood of Brookline, Massachusetts stands out. Built in 1936 for Frederic and Erna Gibbs, the house is said to be the first International style single-family home built in the Boston area, predating the famous Gropius House in Lincoln by a couple years. Erna Leonhardt-Gibbs (1904–1987), a German-born pioneer in the development of electroencephalography (EEG) technology, in 1930, married Frederic A. Gibbs, a neurologist, and would soon-after vacation in Germany, seeing the Modern revolution of architecture there in the interwar period. Upon returning the States, the couple hired architect Samuel Glaser, to design their dream home in the Bauhaus style. Set amongst a street of 1930s Tudor houses, the Gibbs residence stands out for its stark white stucco walls, boxy form, with elongated and block windows. While set behind a tall fence and hedge, the house is a landmark example of the style and appears much as it did when built 90 years ago.

Rowe House // 1911

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The Rowe House at 11 Mason Street is an over-the-top, and high-style example of the Colonial Revival style, showcasing the oversized proportions and scale that architects in the early 20th century followed when referencing Colonial American architecture. The house here was built in 1911 for Edward Prescott Rowe (1879-1936) and his wife, Eleanor Livingstone. Designed by the firm of Rowe & Keyes of Boston and New York, the commission was likely a relative of Mr. and Mrs. Rowe. The symmetrical house features a broad gambrel roof with Palladian windows in the side gable and central dormer at the facade, large pilasters breaking up the bays on the facade, a projecting Colonial Revival entry, and squat windows at the second floor terminating at the entablature above. The property even retains its Colonial Revival gateway.

John Endicott Peabody House – Ivy Street School // 1910

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This stately mansion is located at 200 Ivy Street in the Cottage Farm neighborhood of Brookline and was built in 1910 for Martha and John Endicott Peabody. Designed in a Renaissance/Colonial Revival style by architect John Worthington Ames, the house has since been converted to institutional use, but retains much of its original character. John Endicott Peabody (1853-1921) was a businessman and later got involved with the arts in Boston. The building was acquired for institutional use beginning in the 1950’s and was occupied as the St. Dominic’s Institute and has been owned by the Massachusetts Association for the Blind since 1976, and today is occupied by the organization’s Ivy Street School, a special education residential and day high school for neurodivergent youth to help prepare pupils for adulthood with the tools they need to achieve their greatest independence. The brick house is covered in stucco and features an elaborate stone door surround, symmetrical facade, and massive chimneys.

Wells-Bullard House // c.1868

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One of the finest Second Empire style houses in Brookline can be found on Prescott Street in the fashionable Cottage Farm neighborhood of the city. Built around 1868 by Amos A. Lawrence, who lived in a house nearby, this “cottage” was rented out to John Wells (1819-1875), a Judge on the Massachusetts State Supreme Court until his death. The property remained in the Lawrence family into the 20th century and was later rented to George E. Bullard, a banker. The brick house is notable for its siting at the center of the lot, corner quoins, brick corbelled cornice, arched door and windows, and slate mansard roof.

Lawrence-Parker House // 1864

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Built in 1864 as one of the rental properties owned by Amos A. Lawrence as part of his exclusive Cottage Farm neighborhood in Brookline, this house has been extensively altered and even moved but retains significance as a surviving mid-19th century “cottage” in the neighborhood. The house was likely constructed as a one-story, stone cottage with a second floor contained within a mansard roof. In 1903, Mrs. Francis W. Lawrence hired the well-known architect and Brookline resident, Julius A. Schweinfurth, to make extensive alterations to the cottage, replacing the mansard roof with a new second floor with gable roof, along with a new porch. Schweinfurth’s design included wood shingle siding for the upper floors, which were replaced with stucco in 1970. The house was moved to its current site at the corner of Carlton and Mountfort streets in 1929 when the street was re-oriented to follow the old Boston & Albany Railroad tracks. When moved, the cottage was occupied by Philip Stanley Parker, a judge, and his wife, Eleanor. Today, the cottage is owned by Boston University and known as the Core House.

Dexter-Hall Cottage // 1851

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Built across the street from the Amos A. Lawrence House in the Cottage Farm neighborhood in Brookline, the Dexter-Hall Cottage is an early Gothic Revival style residence built in the first period of the district’s history. Architect, George Minot Dexter was gifted a desirable house lot in the neighborhood from Amos Lawrence as a reward for his designing his own property, and in turn, designed this cottage in 1851 in the the same mode as the Lawrence House. The stone cottage has a three bay façade with enclosed center entry. On the second floor are wall dormers as well as a central jerkinhead dormer with a gambrel slate roof. The property was later owned by George M. Dexter’s daughter, Emily, and her husband, Thomas Bartlett Hall. The house remained in the Hall family through at least the 1920s.

Almy-Palfrey House // c.1858

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The area was developed thanks to Amos A. Lawrence (1814-1886), a wealthy second-generation Bostonian, who provided much of the capital and enthusiasm for the growth of the cotton industry in New England prior to the Civil War. Lawrence’s involvement in the industry aided the development of the Massachusetts mill towns of Lowell and Lawrence, whom the city was named after. In 1851, Amos Lawrence purchased 200 acres of land from David Sears, who himself developed the equally beautiful Longwood neighborhood of Brookline on the other side of Beacon Street. Amos began to subdivide the land, working with the architect George Minot Dexter and landscape architect and surveyor, Alexander Wadsworth, who designed Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, to create an early picturesque residential suburb. With houses designed in the newly popular Gothic Revival and Mansard styles and several small parks, the area became known as Cottage Farm. This house was built for Amos Lawrence as an early, brick Mansard home, and rented out to Frederick Almy, a wealthy Boston attorney. The property was sold out of the Lawrence Family and later purchased by John Gorham Palfrey (1875-1945) a lawyer, who modified the house by removing the mansard roof and replacing it with a full third story with a brick veneer to match the walls below to give it a more Colonial Revival design.

Charles Mason Cottage // 1853

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The Charles Mason Cottage at 89 Carlton Street is one of two extant brick cottages built by Amos A. Lawrence as part of his Cottage Farm neighborhood in Brookline, Massachusetts. The Gothic Revival style cottage was built around 1853 and owned by Lawrence for rental purposes. By 1861, this house had been sold to Reverend Charles Mason (1812-1862), who married Amos Lawrence’s late sister, Susanna. The property was inherited by the couple’s daughter, Mary and her husband, Howard Stockton, a lawyer and onetime president of American Bell Telephone Company. The Mason Cottage is unique for its brick construction, projecting entry with porches on either sides, lancet doors and window, wall and shed dormers at the roof, and the original windows with chimney pots.