Massachusetts

Waitt and Bond Building // 1891

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One of several late 19th-century industrial buildings in the North End, the Waitt & Bond Building stands on Endicott Street, looking over the scar on the landscape that is I-93. This six-story building was constructed in 1891 and is the oldest extant building in Boston associated with cigar manufacturers Henry Waitt (1842-1902) and Charles H. Bond (1846-1908), who started business in 1870. The business relocated from Saugus to Boston in 1873 and moved into this building upon its completion. Waitt & Bond produced handmade cigars with each employee hand-rolling over 300-a-day. The architect, Ernest N. Boyden, designed the building in the Panel-Brick and Romanesque styles with decorative brick panels, cornice, and arched detailing. Rooftop billboard signage (blight) was first added to the building in 1956, with increased visibility via the elevated John Fitzgerald Expressway (the Central Artery). By the early 1960s, Joseph Castignetti moved his men’s clothing store, Castignetti Brothers, to this location. In 2001, the building was converted into 28 loft-style condos, an early sign of the gentrification to come to the North End.

William Slattery Tenements // c.1893

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It is not always the architect-designed, high-style buildings that give a place character. The North End is a neighborhood almost entirely built of working-class tenement housing, but its density, immigrant history, and vernacular, make it one of the most visited and unique in the city. Michael Slattery, an Irish-born teamster, and his son, William, a grocer, developed this handsome block of tenement housing on North Margin Street in the North End neighborhood of Boston. The row of apartments stands out for its elevated design elements, including the projecting metal oriels with decorative wreath and swag motifs, arched openings, and brick corbeling at the cornice. The apartments here were rented by the Slattery family until the mid-1920s when the buildings were sold to Italian-Americans who continued to rent the buildings to lower-income residents. There is something about the North End’s vernacular that is so charming.

Vermont Marble Building // 1904

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Located across the street from Regina Pizza in Boston’s North End, the Vermont Building stands as one of the most ornate and decorated buildings in the neighborhood. Designed by Boston architects Arthur H. Bowditch and Edward B. Stratton and constructed in 1904, the Vermont Building is a six-story brick commercial building with marble detailing. The building was erected as a personal investment by Redfield Proctor, U. S. Senator from Vermont and partner in his family’s marble company based in Proctor, VT, with the building used for light manufacturing, a warehouse, and storefronts. The building has since been converted to housing as lofts.

Boston Cooperative Building Company Tenements – Regina Pizzeria // 1886

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What is your favorite pizzeria in the Boston area? For many, it is likely to be Regina Pizzeria, but specifically this location in Boston’s North End. The building was originally constructed in 1886 for the Boston Cooperative Building Company, a charitable organization which built and rented tenement housing for low-income residents in the city. Many recently arrived immigrants would have lived in the building and paid a nominal rent, giving them the opportunity to work and grow their savings to move into better, more permanent housing. The Association was incorporated in 1871 and its original stockholders represented the financial elite of Boston. As a result of their financial backing, the association was able to hire the white-shoe architectural firm of Cabot & Chandler to design this tenement block in 1886. While not ornate, the building fits within the late 19th century vernacular of brick tenements of the North End. The building is now best known as the home to Regina Pizza, which was founded in 1926 by Luigi D’Auria, who was born in Campania, Italy, who purchased the building around that time. Regina Pizza (translated to “Queen Pizza” in Italian), was sold to the Polcari family in 1956, who have operated the restaurant since. The pizzeria with its prominent blade sign is one of the best landmarks in the North End.

Derby Summer House // 1793

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The Derby Summer House sits on the Glen Magna Farms property in Danvers, Massachusetts, and is a rare and excellent example of a formal 18th century garden house in the Federal Style. The structure was built in 1793-94 by Samuel Mclntire, the noted craftsman-carpenter of Salem, on the country farm of Elias Hasket Derby in South Danvers. The Derby Farm was sold off by the family, but in 1901, Mrs. Ellen Peabody Endicott, a descendant of the original owners, bought the Derby Summer House and transported it to Glen Magna Farm, their own summer residence. A shopping center now occupies the original location of the Derby Farm. Inside the structure on the first floor, there are two small rooms which are divided by a central hall that extends through the structure. The steps and vestibule at this level are surfaced in white marble. The second floor, where tea was served, was decorated in an Oriental manner. A wood parquet floor, dating from the first decade of this century is still in place. The structure with its carved figures has been studied and replicated by architects and historians for decades, but nothing beats the original.


Glen Magna Farms // c.1790

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Glen Magna Farms is a historic estate located in Danvers, Massachusetts, and it is one of the lesser-known historic properties of this stature. During the War of 1812, Joseph Peabody, the wealthiest Salem shipping merchant of his day, bought a 20-acre Danvers farm with a dwelling house. The c.1790 house was likely updated at this time in a higher example of the Federal style, and used as a summer residence the family would escape to during the warmer months. Peabody purchased additional property and Glen Magna grew to over 130-acres. William Crowninshield Endicott, who served as Secretary of War during the Grover Cleveland administration, married Ellen Peabody, granddaughter of Joseph Peabody in 1859. The couple would inherit Glen Magna and later hire the firm of Little, Browne, and Moore in the 1890s to renovate the mansion and update the gardens. Ellen Peabody Endicott would also have the Derby Summer House added to the grounds by 1901. In 1963, the Danvers Historical Society purchased the house and eleven acres of surrounding gardens which they painstakingly restored to their early 20th century condition. Glen Magna can now be rented out for weddings and other events!

Fowler House // 1809

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Photo courtesy of Wikimedia commons.

The Fowler House is located in the Danversport section of Danvers, Massachusetts, and is one of the town’s few brick Federal period homes. The residence was built in 1809 by builders Levi Preston and Stephen Whipple for Samuel Fowler Jr., an early Danvers industrialist and landowner in this part of town. The property was passed down through generations of the Fowler family and ultimately acquired by the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA, now known as Historic New England) as their second property acquisition in 1912. Uniquely, Historic New England granted life occupancy of the house to the two unwed Fowler sisters, who had resided here, even as it was converted into a museum. When bought by SPNEA, some members were concerned that the Fowler house was not grand or architecturally interesting enough to warrant its acquisition, Samuel Appleton, the founder, stated, “As might be expected, the Fowler home reflects the simple tastes of its owner. As seen from the square the house is as severely simple as it could be. It depends for its effect on its very simplicity and admirable proportions. The principal features of the house may be said to be simplicity, good taste, solid construction, splendid preservation, and homogeneity.” The property was eventually sold by Historic New England to a private owner, but a preservation easement by the Society ensures its preservation for the future. The Fowler House was recently listed for sale, and the property retains many historical features, including original ca. 1810 wallpaper in the main two-story entry hall and a large hearth in the main kitchen, its original floors, plaster, woodwork and other features.

St. John’s Memorial Dining Hall // 1925

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Built in 1925 as the cafeteria for St. John’s Prep School in Danvers, Massachusetts, this handsome brick building is sited across Summer Street from Porphyry and Xavier halls, both built decades earlier. The structure was designed by architect, Matthew Sullivan, a member of the notable firm, Maginnis, Walsh & Sullivan, who specialized in ecclesiastical design in the Boston area. The firm disbanded in 1907 with Sullivan creating his own practice, where he won the commission for this building years later. The cafeteria is Neo-Gothic in style with Gothic tracery, lancet arches, buttresses and pinnacles at the entrances. This is a really underrated and stunning structure. I am glad to see it so well-preserved 100 years later!

Xavier Hall // 1911

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Xavier Hall was built between 1910-11 on the campus of St. John’s Prep School in Danvers, Massachusetts. The building was constructed by the Xaverian Brothers as classrooms as the first purpose-built structure in what would become a large campus. The Neo-Gothic Revival style building was sited adjacent to Porphyry Hall, an 1880 estate house that the new school purchased in 1891, which was later expanded by the addition of a rear chapel. Edward T. P. Graham, an architect best known for his design of Roman Catholic churches and associated buildings, was hired to design the stately structure built of brick and limestone.

Porphyry Hall // 1880

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The Jacob E. Spring Mansion, also known as Porphyry Hall, is a high-style estate house located in Danvers, Massachusetts, that is one of the finest and most unique in the state! The house was built in 1880 for Jacob Evans Spring (1825-1905), who was born in Brownfield, Maine, and at the age of twenty, he went to Argentina and amassed a fortune in the wool business in Buenos Aires between 1845 and 1865, when he returned to the United States. Jacob and his wife, Sara Duffy, would purchase a large farm in Danvers and began planning for their family country home. Their residence was built on a high hill over two years and constructed of over 40 types of stones of irregular size and color with door and window sills of Nova Scotia freestone with arches of the doors and windows and corners of brick. The mansion was designed by architect George M. Harding of Boston, and built by several skilled masons over many months. Mr. Spring named his estate, “Porphyry Hall” with Porphyry meaning an igneous rock with large crystals in a fine-grained matrix; suitable for the walls of their mansion. The Spring’s lived lavishly at this home and spent nearly all of their fortune, selling the property after just ten years to the Xaverian Brothers, who opened it as Saint John’s Normal College. In 1907, the compound was re-organized as a Catholic boys prep school. In 1915, a chapel was added to the rear of the building, constructed from gray fieldstone to blend with the main house. Have you ever seen a building like this?