Built in 1848 for Rev. James Conway of Salem, this stunning Greek Revival home on Winter Street blends architectural integrity with a bold pop of color! James Conway was born in Ballinamore, Ireland and moved to the United States and was ordained as a Catholic priest. He was a missionary with the Penobscot Tribe in Maine, before preaching in Lowell and later in Salem, Massachusetts. When he moved to Salem, he had this house on Winter Street built with flush board siding, paneled side-hall entry, and moulded window surrounds with corner blocks. Conway would later sell the property to Edward Trumbull, a Salem merchant and later to Ebenezer Putnam. It was likely Putnam who added the oversized second-story bay window on the facade of the house.
This lovely brick house on Winter Street in Salem was constructed for Capt. John Bertram in 1842-3. John Bertram (1795-1882) as a boy had his first job as a cabin boy and would work his way up to become a commander, ship owner and investor. He was extensively involved in shipping around the world including to Zanzibar, South America, and California and later he invested in railroads and real estate. He retired from actively commanding boats at age thirty-six with a vast fortune which he would become a philanthropist, giving much of it to charitable causes and his home city of Salem. Captain Bertram continued to own this property until 1855, when he moved to his new house on Essex Street, which he later gifted to the City of Salem as its public library. By the time of his death in 1882, he donated funds to the Salem Hospital, Old Men’s Home, Home for Aged Women, and various colleges and scholarships. Bertram sold this Winter Street house to John Jewett in 1855 for $10,000. Jewett began his career as a cabinet maker in Beverly in 1817 and subsequently became a dealer in mahogany, fancy woods, furniture and grain. Jewett died in 1874 and the property was sold by his heirs to Henry Appleton Hale in 1890. Engaged in the hardware business, Hale also served as president of the Salem Gas Light Company and as a vice president of the Salem Five Cents Savings Bank. Mr. Hale also served the country during the Civil War, and was shot in the face at Antietam on September 17, 1862. The bullet knocked out his front teeth and sliced off a piece of his tongue. Despite the severity of his wound, he recovered and returned to the regiment months later, and mustered out in 1865 following another injury. Henry A. Hale died in 1927. The property is significant not only for its owners, but also for its architectural quality and integrity. The transitional Federal-Greek Revival house features a recessed entry with original leaded sidelight and transom windows, brownstone trimmings, and alterations (likely by Hale) from the second half of the 19th century, including the projecting bay and arched window in the gable.
Captain Nathaniel Brown (1800-1866), a master mariner in Salem, built this fine brick house on Brown Street in 1851. Captain Brown bought the lot from the heirs of Nathaniel Kinsman in 1850, with an older house already occupying the site. The existing house was razed and construction began on this house, with it completed by 1851. The building is unique as it resembles the Federal period form of the five-bay and three-story residence with shortened third-floor windows under a low hipped roof. Although the Federal period waned in popularity by the 1830s, this house clearly took cues from the earlier homes nearby. Following Nathaniel Brown’s death in 1866, James Herrick Battis, a tobacconist and cigar manufacturer, purchased the home. City records state that Battis was issued a building permit in 1878 for an addition to the dwelling. It is probable that the bay windows and front door hood were also added at this time, giving the residence more of an Italianate style. Battis continued to own the property until his death in 1891. By 1930, the residence was converted into apartments and was known as the Conant Apartments. It remains a six-unit apartment building today.
While Salem, Massachusetts, is best-known for its Colonial and 19th century architecture, there are some great 20th century buildings that deserve attention. This is the Kenneally House at 3 Williams Street, just north of the Salem Common, a c.1913 Colonial Revival home with great curb appeal. The house was built for Maurice D. Kenneally, a teamster, who lived here with his wife, Mary, and son, Patrick. Symmetrically arranged, the house has a center entry , with sidelights and an elliptical fanlight. The front facade is dominated by a full-width first story porch on paired Doric columns and a gable roof with Palladian window.
In 1847, George Clark (1815-1890), a Salem carpenter, purchased a house lot on Oliver Street, a block away from the Salem Common. That year he began constructing this cottage for his family. The Clark Family resided here for just a year until 1849, when George got caught up in the California Gold Rush, selling the property and moving west to make his fortune. Since Mr. Clark was back in Salem by 1850 (according to the federal census), he was likely one of the thousands of forty-niners who did not strike it rich. The Greek Revival style house is unique for its more Gothic style gable, brackets, and segmental arched windows.
Besides the former Wright Carriage House (now the Soule Recreation Center), the only other extant building that was built on the grounds of the former John G. Wright Estate in Brookline, Massachusetts, is this structure, the historic gatehouse to the property. Built in 1907 at the same time as the manor house, the gatehouse was also designed by architects Chapman & Frazer and served as the entry to the expansive grounds with a room for the gatekeeper to sleep in overnight. The Tudor Revival style building is less ornate than the stone mansion, the half timbering and stucco work well to compliment the other buildings. While the formerly dark half timbering has since been painted a white, the building still maintains its character. While the remainder of the Wright Estate was subdivided and sold off by the heirs of next owner, wool merchant, Andrew Adie, the gatehouse remained and survived the destruction that befell the main manor. The old gatehouse was converted to a full-time residence and remains to this day.
In 1843, Elias Gates (1801-1886) a young farmer, purchased land from the family of his wife, Mary A. Stedman, and had this handsome brick, Greek Revival style house built. The family would reside here less than ten years, and relocate to Albany, where Elias worked as a bookseller. The house was purchased numerous times throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, and operated as a farmhouse until much of the land was sold and subdivided for new housing. The Gates House is a great example of the Greek Revival style with a side hall plan, recessed entry with original sidelights and transom, and bold facade with brick pilasters dividing the bays with brick entablature and gable end facing the street.
This fancy Queen Anne Victorian residence can be found in Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts, and is one of the most unique houses in the industrial city. This property was built and occupied by David B. Griggs, a builder in Chicopee under the firm D. B. Griggs & Sons. The firm was very busy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as Chicopee saw rapid industrial prosperity followed by a population boom, growing in population from over 9,000 residents in 1870 to 36,000 in 1920. Builders like David Griggs were able to grow to upper-middle class and buy property on desirable house lots and build large homes for their family, as was the case here. David Griggs died in 1896, five years after his home was built, and the property was inherited by his son, Millard Griggs. While the residence is covered in vinyl siding (original siding and trim is likely underneath the present siding), the house retains much of its original fabric including the brackets, delicate open friezes at the porches, and four-story tower.
The Edward Bellamy House is the only National Historic Landmark in Chicopee, Massachusetts. Its landmark designation was in honor of journalist and Utopian writer Edward Bellamy (1850–1898), whose home it was for most of his life. The house is located on Church Street in Chicopee Falls, an industrial village in town, which developed around mills and the Chicopee River. Built in for Harmon Rowley, a town selectman and local merchant around 1840, the house would later be purchased in 1852 by Rufus King Bellamy, a Baptist minister, moved the family into this house after its construction. The house, where Edward Bellamy spent much of his childhood is a well-preserved example of a late-Greek Revival residence, and today serves as a museum with rented offices that explores Bellamy’s ideas on social reform, economic justice, and the future of society. From this house, Edward Bellamy wrote Looking Backward, a utopian novel that was instantly popular. Within a year it had sold 200,000 copies, and by the end of the 19th century had sold more copies than any other book published in America up to that time except for Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe and Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace. His visionary work, which proposed a world free of poverty and class divisions, sparked a nationwide movement and influenced early American socialism. Edward Bellamy died of tuberculosis at his home, ten years after the publication of his most famous book. He was 48 years old. Today, the house stands as a reminder of Bellamy’s lasting legacy and his role in shaping conversations about social progress in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
This large house sits on Peabody Avenue in Danvers, Massachusetts, and is thought to be the oldest house built of cement in the United States! Joshua Sylvester Silvester (1803-1888), the house’s original owner, was born in Wiscasset, Maine, and began working in the shoemaking business, expanding his products in England, taking many business trips there. While in England, he is said to have particularly admired Charles Dickens’s estate, Gad’s Hill, and modeled his Danvers home after it. Joshua Silvester not only designed this house, but directly supervised its construction which is of hand-poured cement/stucco by two masons imported to town to work on the house. The fifteen-room residence with octagon-shaped barn was complete by 1858. In 1880, the property was purchased by Isaac B. Howe of Clinton, Iowa. Howe was a civil engineer who had helped to lay out the Transcontinental Railroad and had been superintendent of the Iowa division of the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad. Howe died within a year of moving to Danvers, but his family continued to live in the house for many years.
A significant house and grounds are tucked away, hidden off Dudley Road in Newton, Massachusetts. This is the Kennard Estate. Frederic Hedge Kennard (1865-1937) was born in Brookline and attended Harvard College. He did graduate work for a time at the Bussey Institution and the Lawrence Scientific School, and entered the employ of Frederick Law Olmsted, the noted landscape architect, with his office in Brookline. By 1906, he decided to open his own landscape architecture office, opening locations in Boston and Philadelphia. He would purchase this expansive wooded property, and had this house built by 1907. He laid out the grounds, creating paths and gardens on the property and planted native trees. It is unclear who designed the house, sadly. Mr. Kennard was also a noted ornithologist (an expert on birds) and would host visiting scholars at his home, walking the grounds and studying birds there. After his death in 1937, the property was inherited by his son, Harrison Eisenbrey Kennard, and ultimately willed to the City of Newton upon his death in 1982. Since then, Newton Parks and Recreation have maintained the house (though they could be doing more to preserve it), and opened the grounds as Kennard Park, a free public park comprised of wooded trails and streams.
The Spofford Family was one of the earliest to settle in present-day Georgetown, with the earliest enclave of homes built along Andover Road in the western part of town. A few generations later, subsequent family members would built in the town center, taking advantage of the growing commercial and business community. This Federal period home (with later alterations) was built around 1830 for Greenleaf Spofford (1801-1887) the same year as his marriage to Emily Willmarth. The couple would move out of town and sold the home to Dr. Richmond Barbour Root (1846-1930), the second of a highly respected, three generation family to practice medicine in Georgetown. The overlay of machine-sawn Stick Style decorative porch, bracketed cornice and bay windows were likely added by Root sometime after the Civil War. Unlike most owners of Federal and Greek Revival-style dwellings, Dr. Root may have held a valid professional interest in appearing as up-to-date as possible with a “modernized” home that also served as the site of his office and consulting rooms.
One of the many pre-Revolutionary homes in Georgetown, Massachusetts, the Spofford House is located on Andover Road, an important route which was occupied by many residences of the Spofford Family. In 1667, John Spofford and his family became the first permanent (European) residents in what would become Georgetown. Generations later his ancestor, Eleazar Spofford (1739-1828) would build this home in 1765 to be occupied by his new wife married that year, Mary Flint, and their new family. The Georgian farmhouse has been significantly altered since its original date of construction, but retains its general form and character even with later 19th and 20th century additions, porches, and windows. The Spofford’s had six children in this home and would later move to Jaffrey, New Hampshire after the Revolution, but returned and settled in nearby Groveland. Later generations of the Spofford’s would live-in and modify the home until it finally sold out of the family in the 20th century.
When Brookline Village filled in with multi-family housing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many speculative real estate developments sprouted up from larger residential estates. As so many were built on speculation, high-quality designs and construction were a necessity to bring in picky buyers. This two-family house was built on the corner of Brook and Toxeth streets by Levi T. Lyon, a builder and developer, who lived on Brook Street. This house was designed by F. Manton Wakefield, a relatively unknown architect who apprenticed under Shingle-style maestro William Ralph Emerson, before opening his own firm. Buildings like this are great as they provide much-needed housing, while being built of a good scale that allows residents to know their neighbors, not as easy in a high-rise.
The Day House is a significant landmark in Norwood, Massachusetts. Originally built in 1861 for Lewis Day (1835-1910), a wealthy Boston leather dealer who was born in town. The house was a two-story Second Empire style mansion with mansard roof and detached stable. During 1890-92 the Day House was rebuilt at the direction of the Lewis’ son, F. Holland Day, who hired Boston architect J. Williams Beal to remodel the house in the Tudor Revival style. Fred Holland Day (1864 – 1933) was a prominent photographer and publisher and was an early and vocal advocate for accepting photography as a fine art. Day’s life and works were controversial because he took an unconventional approach to religious subjects and often photographed males nude sometimes the photos being homoerotic, leading many to speculate he was gay, though he never “came out”. Fred Holland Day died in 1933 and the house is today owned and managed by the Norwood Historical Society as a historic house museum.
Buildings of New England 
