Kennard Road Brookline

Swan-Davenport House // 1897

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Located next to the Jeremiah Hill House on Kennard Street in Brookline, this home appears to have taken its architectural cues from its older neighbor. The home was built in 1897 for Francis and Sarah Swan, in the Neo-Classical style, which employed design from Classical Roman and Greek architecture and saw its resurgence in the late 19th-early 20th centuries as a revival from the Greek Revival period in the early-mid 19th century. Mr. Swan, the first owner of this home was vice-president of the Brookline National Bank (later
the Brookline Trust). He sold the home just three years after it was completed, to Francis H. Davenport, a physician. The home was designed by architect Frank Manton Wakefield, who previously trained in the offices of Henry Hobson Richardson and lived nearby in town.

Jeremiah Hill House // 1843

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This house was built in 1843 for Jeremiah Hill, a commission merchant and partner in Hill, Chamberlin & Co. at 11 Central Wharf, Boston. The architect for the home was Gridley J. Fox Bryant, as one of his earlier commission, and it is the only known design by him in Brookline. Bryant went on to become one of the most influential architects in New England, designing the Charles Street Jail, Old Boston City Hall, and a number of buildings on the Bates College campus in Maine. Jeremiah Hill died in 1862, and his daughters, in distressed circumstances, were forced to sell the family home in 1869. It soon after bought by Martin P. Kennard, a partner in the firm of Bigelow & Kennard, jewelers and silversmiths, located for many years on Boylston Street in Boston. Kennard subdivided the property, laying out Hedge and Kennard Streets adjacent to the home, selling building lots while he lived there. By 1927, the grounds were purchased by the Park School, who sought to expand from their smaller property nearby (they later built a massive school a short drive away). The Hill Estate was given to the Town of Brookline for use as a school, and it now houses the Brookline Music School.