Frederick Law Olmsted

The Rockery, North Easton // 1885

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What may appear at first glance to be an overgrown pile of boulders and vegetation on a small triangular parklet in the village of North Easton, Massachusetts, is actually a significant landscape feature designed through the partnership of the country’s most prominent architect, Henry Hobson Richardson, and landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted. Beginning in 1877, the wealthy Ames family, led by Frederick Lothrop Ames, commissioned elite architect, H. H. Richardson, to design a town library, the Ames Free Library. Years later in 1879, the children of Congressman Oakes Ames, hired Richardson to design another building immediately south of the library, to serve as the town hall, named Oakes Ames Memorial Hall. After these structures were completed, landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted, the designer of New York’s Central Park and Boston’s Emerald Necklace parks, was hired to landscape the site surrounding the Memorial Hall. Richardson had mentioned the desire to create a continuous site here, which would flow into the triangular parcel south of his two landmark buildings. For this small site, Olmsted designed the Rockery, built as a Civil War memorial to the town’s dead and a small landscape as a cairn, drawing from the ancient symbolism of the cairn as a memorial or burial marker.

Queset Lodge // 1854

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Tucked away behind the Ames Free Library in Easton, Massachusetts, you will find one of the most stately examples of Gothic Revival architecture in New England. The house is known as Queset Lodge, and it was completed in 1854 for Oakes Angier Ames, of the wealthy Ames Family. Oakes Ames was an owner of the Ames Shovel Works nearby, which made the family multi-millionaires and have the ability to generously gift buildings to their hometown. The original picturesque Gothic Cottage was built in a style that had been advocated by Andrew Jackson Downing in his publication, The Architecture of Country Houses (1850). In 1873, Oakes Ames hired his family member, John Ames Mitchell, to design the rear addition, effectively doubling the size of the stone mansion. Mitchell also added the copper-clad chimneys and hired landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, to design the grounds and gardens. After his death in 1899, the home was occupied by his son, famous theatrical producer Winthrop Ames, and his wife. The family would eventually gift the property to the Town of Easton, which is today used as an extension of the Public Library!

Oakes Ames Memorial Hall // 1881

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Located in the center of North Easton, Massachusetts, the landmark Oakes Ames Memorial Hall is the work of famed architect, Henry Hobson Richardson, and among one of the finest of his buildings. In 1879, the children of Oakes Ames (1804-1873), an extremely wealthy businessman, industrialist and congressman from Easton, commissioned the great American architect to design a Memorial Hall as a tribute to their father. Richardson, the architect of Boston’s beloved Trinity Church in Copley Square, responded with this picturesque masterpiece in his eponymous Richardsonian Romanesque architectural style, with walls of rusticated granite that are articulated with contrasting brownstone at the arches, window and door surrounds, and deep band courses. The Ames Memorial Hall is sited atop a rocky outcropping with the building accessed by a grand brownstone stair and landscaping designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. The building is relatively square in form and features a prominent corner tower, an arcaded entry of five massive arches on squat columns, and a steeply peaked roof finished in red terracotta. Often overlooked, the frieze at the top of the tower is lined with ornamental carvings of the signs of the Zodiac in brownstone. The building was provided to the Town of Easton by the Ames Family “for all the ordinary purposes of a town hall”, but it was never used for its intended purpose as the town hall, and has mainly served as a meeting space for groups and events. The Town of Easton does a commendable job preserving these nationally significant Richardson-designed landmarks for all to enjoy.

Charles Storrow House // 1884

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Facade

This shingle and brick Queen Anne style house at 112 High Street in Brookline, Massachusetts, was built in 1884 for Charles Storrow and his wife, Martha Cabot Storrow from plans by architect, Edward C. Cabot, Martha’s father. The lot here is said to have been gifted to Charles from his father, Charles Storer Storrow, a prominent civil engineer and industrialist, who is known for designing and building the dam and textile mill complex in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Besides the Victorian main house, the property included a historic stable and a detached house on an adjacent lot, which appears to have been rented by Mr. and Mrs. Storrow. The property was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted’s firm, with rustic rock walls, natural topography, and large, mature plantings. The Storrow House originally had stained glass windows designed by John LaFarge, which were sold in the 1970s. 

Side elevation.

Dike-Harkness House // 1854

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One of the most stunning Italianate style homes in Providence is this stately beauty which is located on Prospect Street. The house was built in 1854 on land sold from Oscar to Henry A. Dike (Dyke), a shoe manufacturer, who erected this stately residence for his family, who only remained there until the early 1860s when it was sold. The home was built on one lot, facing a second house lot, and not the street like many other residences. The property changed hands many times during and soon after the American Civil War, until 1870, when it was purchased by Albert Harkness (1822-1907), a Brown University Classics professor. It was in Professor Harkness’ ownership that the southern house lot was landscaped from plans by Frederick Law Olmsted‘s firm in 1887. The house, which recently sold in 2022, is well-preserved from its massive brackets to the oversized belvedere at the roof!