Elisha Rice (1784-1841) moved to Wayland, Massachusetts in 1800 and built this charming house on Bow Road for himself and his family. Elisha worked as a wheelwright, a craftsman who builds and repairs wooden wheels, and was able to build this home near the village. While built and later occupied by later artisans, the community has become an exclusive and wealthy Boston area suburb, which has subsequently made it so many “working class” citizens can no longer afford such a house, but has also allowed many of these great old homes to be lovingly preserved and maintained for future generations.
Located in the Wayland Center village, this c.1844 Greek Revival style cottage stands out not for flourish or scale, but for its excellent design, proportions, and state of preservation. The three-bay facade has a recessed first story set under the pediment extending over the open porch. The pediment is carried by squared, tapered columns with dentils and the facade retains its unique flush-board siding and triple-hung first-story window sash. The house was built by 1844 for Warren Hunt, who operated a small dry goods store near the town common. Not long after he had the house built, Hunt sold the property and store to Luther B. White (1822-1884), who lived here for at least two decades. In 1888, Mrs. Alice Dickey and her husband, Charles F. Dickey, a carpenter, purchased the house and expanded it at the rear.
Built around 1865, this stately residence in Wayland, Massachusetts, was originally owned by sea captain, Edward Pousland who came to Wayland with his family around 1859. Interestingly, Mr. Pousland continued working as a sea captain, travelling to Salem and Beverly, where he would be at sea for months at a time. Likely due to his profession, the house features a ‘widow’s walk’, a common feature of houses by the sea where folklore holds that the wives of ships’ captains looked out for the return of their husbands. Edward, his wife Hannah W. (Langmaid) Pousland lived in this house at least until Edward’s death. After successive ownership, the property was purchased by Jonathan Maynard Parmenter (1831-1921), who gifted the house to the First Parish Church across the street, for use as a parsonage a use that continued until 1984 when the church sold the house back into private ownership. The house, designed in the Italianate style, was “modernized” in the early 20th century with Colonial Revival alterations, which added the portico and likely removed the brackets at the eaves.
The Wilder Mansion at 101 Wilder Road in Bolton, Massachusetts, was built in about 1738 as an early Georgian farmhouse by Josiah Richardson, a Revolutionary War veteran who died in the home in 1799. By 1814, Sampson Vryling Stoddard Wilder purchased the property and “modernized” the old farmhouse which due to its location along the Bay Path, a major east-west route from Lancaster to Boston, operated it as an inn and tavern. Mr. Wilder expanded the property, purchasing additional nearby farmland to create a country seat worthy of a wealthy agent for some of the most influential merchants in the shipping trade in Boston. During his tour of the United States in 1824, Marquis de Lafayette spent the night here on September 2nd between visits to Boston and Lancaster. Sampson V. S. Wilder lost the property following economic crises, and the property changed hands many times until the early 20th century. Stockbroker John L . Saltonstall (1878-1929), first cousin to Massachusetts Governor Leverett Saltonstall, hired Boston architects Bigelow & Wadsworth in 1910, to return the house to a more Colonial appearance. He and his family were apparently only summer residents here, and he was probably absent for a long period during the First World War, when he worked with the Navy and the War Trade Board in Washington, D.C. In about 1915, he sold the property, and in the early 1920’s he relocated to Topsfield, Mass. After WWI, the house had a series of short-term owners, one of which was Henry Forbes Bigelow, who designed the renovation of the house just years prior. Bigelow would later relocate to a new summer house nearby in Lancaster.
The town center of Bolton, Massachusetts, as we know it, was largely an early Colonial landholding and farm held by William Sawyer (1679-1741) who possessed roughly 300 acres in the area when Bolton was still a part of Lancaster. The Town of Bolton seceded along the Still River from Lancaster and incorporated in 1738. A year later, an aging William Sawyer gifted two acres of his land for the town’s newly designated burying ground, now the Old South Burying Ground, where his own grave (dated 1741), is the oldest marked burial in the cemetery. In 1780, William’s son, William Sawyer, Jr., sold over sixty-acres of the family farm to his son, Joseph Sawyer (1756-1828) who was to marry Ruth Walcott in 1782. This house was probably built about the time of their marriage. Joseph had previously fought in the Revolutionary War, and marched with the Bolton militia to Lexington on April 19, 1775, and upon his return, he worked as a blacksmith and operated the farm while serving in various town offices.
The oldest residence in the North Village of Lancaster, Massachusetts, the John Bennett House dates to 1717 and evokes the old Colonial days of New England towns. John Bennett settled in Lancaster and built this large First Period house for his family and operated it as a tavern to weary travellers passing through town along the main turnpike. After Bennett’s death, local legend identifies that the property was a stopping place on the Underground Railroad for runaway slaves escaping to Canada. This, however, has never been substantiated. From 1872 to 1874, the house was occupied by the first Adventist missionary, John Nevins Andrews, co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The house is well-preserved and remains as one of the oldest in Lancaster and an important landmark of the early days of the community.
Judge John Sprague (1740-1800) was a Harvard graduate and settled in Lancaster, Massachusetts as one of only three lawyers in Worcester County following the departure of his Tory colleagues during the Revolution. From this, a young Sprague climbed the professional ladder quickly and represented Lancaster in the General Court beginning in 1782 and occasionally sat in the Senate. He was first appointed judge in 1784 and in 1798 became chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas for Worcester County. After being appointed a judge in 1784, Sprague purchased a house lot on Main Street in Lancaster and hired local housewrights Eli Stearns and Jonathan Whitney, to design and build this stately home. Judge Sprague moved from his 1771 house a short distance away, to this more substantial late-Georgian home with projecting entry with pilasters and pediment. After his death in 1800, the property was inherited by his daughter, Ann Sprague Vose and her husband, a merchant, Peter Thatcher Vose.
On Main Street in the central village of Lancaster, Massachusetts, the Solon Wilder House stands as one of the town’s finest Victorian-era residences. The house dates to 1883 and was built for Solon Wilder (1828-1889) and his wife, Olive. Mr. Wilder ran a store and served as town treasurer, doing well enough financially to build this handsome, and modern house and rear stable for the time. The Stick style house features a porch with cut woodwork, decorative trusses in gables, and wooden wall cladding interrupted by “stickwork” patterns raised from the wall surface that is meant to symbolize the structural skeleton of the home.
Built just before the turn of the 19th century, this handsome five-bay vernacular Federal period house is located on the charming Main Street of Chester, Vermont, and is one of the oldest extant houses in the village. The residence was built in 1799 by Comfort Carpenter Dresser (1777-1856), who with his family, moved from Bridgewater, Massachusetts, to the town of Chester, where he found work as a carpenter and housewright, a fitting profession due to his middle name. The family resided here for nearly 30 years until they moved to New Hampshire. The beautiful home, painted a bright white sometime in the 20th century, features a front door with sidelights, 12-over-12 sash windows, and a symmetrical facade, common for the style.
The small, rural Town of Baltimore, Vermont, was originally a part of Cavendish but due to the geography and a mountain separating the village from the main town, residents here voted in 1793 to set off as its own town. The nomenclature of the town name, Baltimore is not clear, as the city in Maryland was named for George Calvert, first Baron Baltimore, who was granted that colony in 1632, but there is no evident connection between the two communities. The word Baltimore itself is Celtic for “large town”; appropriate for Calvert’s colony, perhaps, but hardly for this Vermont town, which is one of the smallest in the state in terms of population or square miles. The town has always been a community without a distinctive village center and has long been primarily farmland, with properties bounded by stone walls and forests. This stone house on Harris Road in Baltimore was built in 1843 by Joshua Leland and his wife, Betsy Boynton. A history of the town speaks of the house, “It was one of the most attractive houses ever built in Baltimore, a well-built front hall and stairway, four fair-sized pleasant rooms downstairs, three well-arranged chambers and a convenient back stairway, all well-finished”. The home, with its date of construction over the front door, remains one of the most historic and well-preserved buildings in the town of just over 200 residents.
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.
Built in 1928 as an accurate reproduction of an 18th-century residence the Codman-Gillet House at 60 High Street in Brookline is significant architecturally in the Colonial Revival style but also as a preserved house by the architectural firm of Howe, Manny and Almy. Lois Lilley Howe and Eleanor Manning were among the first women graduates of the M.I.T. School of Architecture, and the firm was joined in 1926 by Mary Almy. Their firm was the first all-woman architecture practice in Boston and the second in the U.S. Howe was the first woman elected a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. The house was built for William Coombs Codman, a trustee of various real estate trusts, and was likely rented or sold for investment. The first long-time owner/occupants of the residence were Mr. and Mrs. Fernand Gillet and who both taught at the New England Conservatory of Music. Fernand was the principal oboist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1925 to 1946. The Codman-Gillet House features many traditional Colonial Revival elements including: the corner quoining, window trim, a pedimented projecting entrance, and hipped roof with large central chimney.
The Dana House at 41 Allerton Street in Brookline, Massachusetts, is one of many stately suburban residences designed in the Colonial Revival style here. Built in 1896 for Ms. Julia Hurd Dana (1825-1914), a widow of James Dana, who was a Mayor of Charlestown between 1858-1860, before it was annexed to Boston. The Dana House was designed by the important architectural firm of Chapman & Frazer, who specialized in higher-end suburban housing at the turn of the 20th century. Julia Hurd Dana was the daughter of William Hurdof Charlestown, and after her husband’s death, moved to Brookline in this new home with her daughter, Mary. The residence is notable for its ample setback from the street, providing a front yard garden, hipped roof of slate with pedimented dormers, and palladian window over the portico which is now covered in crawling ivy.
Designed by great architect, Thomas Tefft, this three-bay, three-story brownstone house located at 389 Benefit Street in Providence, was built for Tully D. Bowen, a cotton manufacturer. The house, one of the finest Italianate style mansions in the state, is constructed of brownstone and features a recessed arched entrance surrounded by a flat-headed Doric-pilastered frame, pedimented first-floor windows resting on brackets with the alternation of flat and pedimented heads at the second story, and quoining at the corners. The property also retains its original Tefft-designed brick and brownstone carriage house. Thomas Tefft, who was just 27 at the time of designing this house and corresponding brownstone and iron gate, would become one of America’s finest architects before he died in Florence with a fever in 1859 at just 33 years old. The residence was converted to 12 apartments in 1941 and the carriage house was converted to residential use as well. Even with the subdividing the interior spaces of the residence and carriage house, the Bowen property remains in a great state of preservation and is one of the finest homes in Providence.
Buildings of New England 
