Massachusetts

H. H. Fitch House // c.1870

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Henry Hubbard Fitch (1833-1888) was born in Cornish, New Hampshire, but made Roxbury, Massachusetts his home. He moved to Boston at an early age and later entered into business with Francis V. B. Kern under the firm Kern & Fitch, working as a conveyancer. By 1873, he was also a justice of the peace, notary public, and was Boston manager of the Equitable Mortgage Company. In about 1870, he and his wife, Eliza Anne, had this charming Second Empire style cottage built in the Washington Park neighborhood of Roxbury, a fashionable part of the “suburbs” at the time. They would later relocate, before Henry died in 1888 at the age of 55. The house is one of the best preserved in the neighborhood and a survivor from the wrecking ball that destroyed much of Washington Park.

Card Memorial Chapel // 1898

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Cemetery chapels are fairly uncommon, but always a must-see when exploring a new place. These small charming buildings help bridge the gap between life and death and are often adorned with a permanence not seen in our lifetimes. This is the Card Memorial Chapel in the Spring Brook Cemetery of Mansfield, Massachusetts. The chapel was erected in 1898 as a memorial to 31-year-old Mary Lewis Card, who died in 1896. Mary’s parents, Simon W. Card and Mary J. Card, founded S.W. Card Manufacturing Company in 1874. The Mansfield-based company did very well and manufactured tap and die tools locally, shipping them all over the country. Before her abrupt death, Mary Lewis Card was set to marry architect Charles Eastman, who is credited with designing the memorial to his late-fiance. The chapel borrows from the Romanesque and Victorian Gothic styles, and is constructed of red brick laid with a tinted mortar atop a foundation of Quincy granite. The various roof sections are sheathed in green slate. The building displays a cross plan with a central tower rising forty-two feet from the ground to the apex, topped by a steeply pitched pyramidal roof. The building was restored years ago and still looks great!

Soldier’s Memorial Library of Mansfield // 1901

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Arguably the most beautiful building in Mansfield, Massachusetts is the Soldier’s Memorial Library in the center of town. Constructed in 1901, the Soldiers’ Memorial Library is a well-preserved example of 19th
century High Victorian architecture with Shingle style elements, designed by the prominent Boston architectural firm of Peabody & Stearns. In as early as 1896, the idea of constructing a building as a memorial to the soldiers who died in the Civil War had prominent local members of the community. In 1898, a relatively new resident in town, Mrs. Elizabeth Noble, donated a parcel of land for the building with the stipulation that the first floor was to be used as a library and the second floor as an “audience room”,
banquet room, and kitchen for the use of the G.A.R. The architects created one of their most significant civic buildings with an interesting juxtaposition of Gothic elements with Shingle style details. The Gothic lancet window and door surround blends surprisingly well with the use of rubblestone on the first story with buttresses and shingle siding above which give the building a fortress-like appearance.

Thunder Castle // c.1830

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This charming Federal period dwelling in Mansfield, Massachusetts, was built around 1830 by Solomon Pratt and his brother-in-law, Elkanah Bates as a boarding house for the workers at their nearby cotton mill. The duplex was historically split down the middle with a unit on each side, accessed by the shared center stairhall. Local lore states that the Irish immigrant families who lived in this property reported that there were “supernatural” noises in the house, which frightened the occupants, they would tell friends it was “thundering in the castle”, giving the property the nickname, Thunder Castle.

Wellman-Fisher-Richardson House // c.1745

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The Fisher-Richardson House in Mansfield, Massachusetts is considered to be one of the oldest buildings in the suburban town. The home dates to sometime between 1743 and 1751 and was built for its original owner Ebenezer Wellman (1720-1776). The property was eventually owned by Lemuel Fisher, who in about 1800, doubled the size of the house adding its western half. When Lemuel died in 1820, the property was inherited by his youngest son, Daniel, a farmer and blacksmith who also built a gristmill nearby. The home was later inherited by Daniel’s daughter, Evelina and her husband, Captain Ira Richardson. By 1930, the gambrel-roofed Georgian house was in disrepair, and the owner at the time contacted SPNEA (now Historic New England) who drafted an agreement to acquire and restore the house. However, as local interest in the property increased, the owner deeded the property to the town, and the town took on the costs of restoration. The property is now managed by the Mansfield Historical Society.

Mansfield DAR Lodge // c.1830

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Tucked away on a side street in Mansfield, I was pleasantly surprised to stumble upon this charming example of a Craftsman bungalow, a style and form not too common in New England. The style, synonymous with the western United States’ population growth in the early 20th century, never took off the same way here as Yankee homeowners and builders often stayed true to the Colonial Revival style (even today). This building is said to date from the early 1800s and was built as a Federal style cape. It was owned by a Margaret Lane in the late 19th century. By the 1930s, the house was significantly altered with a full-length porch supported by tapered shingled columns atop fieldstone bases and new dormers at the roof with flared eaves. The building has been home to a local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). What a charmer!

Lowney Chocolate Factory // 1903

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The Lowney Chocolate Factory is a historic industrial complex in Mansfield, Massachusetts and was established there after town officials took advantage of rail access provided by the Boston and Providence Railroad and enticed businesses to establish themselves in Mansfield. The Walter M. Lowney Company was a chocolate and candy business founded in Boston in the early 1880s by Walter M. Lowney, who started his business by manufacturing chocolate bonbons. The company built offices and factories in Boston, Montreal and here in Mansfield, where they would ship out boxed sweets to stores all over the country. The Mansfield factory was designed by the architectural and engineering firm of Dean & Main in 1903. The firm was
comprised of partners Francis W. Dean and Charles T. Main, who had offices in Boston and specialized in mill design and engineering from 1893 to 1907, originally designing Lowney’s Boston factory in the North End. A later fieldstone addition was added in 1910 and housed the company’s office and shipping facilities. After Walter Lowney died in 1921, the Walter M. Lowney Company continued to operate under the ownership of Lowney’s wife. In the 1930s the factory property was wholly purchased by the Rexall Drug Company, who renamed the Lowney company, United Chocolate Refiners. The Mansfield factory was later owned by Nabisco to make chocolate for oreo cookies for a number of years until it again changed hands. The factory had been largely empty since 2010 until it was recently converted to mixed-income housing (the best kind of redevelopment)! Who doesn’t love a happy ending?

Mansfield Orthodox Congregational Church // 1839

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Welcome to Mansfield, Massachusetts! Located in the southeastern part of the state, this very suburban town is often overlooked in terms of architecture, but there are definitely some great buildings to discover. This is the Orthodox Congregational Church of Mansfield, an 1839 edifice at the town’s South Common. The congregation was established in the 1730s and followed strict Congregationalist beliefs, which were at odds with the growing tide of Unitarianism which was becoming a dominant belief in the Commonwealth by the early 1800s. The differences came to a head when the Anti-Slavery Riot of 1836 occured. Factions of local pro- and anti-slavery residents fought when Charles C. Burleigh, Secretary of the American Anti-Slavery Society, was invited, with the consent of the parish committee, to lecture in the meeting-house. This difference of theological taste as well as a difference of opinion on the idea of slavery led, in 1838, to the forming of a new society, the Orthodox Congregational Society, who built this church soon-after. While the split-off congregationalists were “behind the times”, among the separatists were Hermon Hall and Deacon Otis Allen, secretary and president of the Mansfield Anti-Slavery Society. This church was completed in 1839, and was altered and enlarged in the 1850s and 1870s.

George Cobb House // c.1865

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While most of the early homes in Newton Centre were built by a few landowners and rented to tenants, this charming Mansard cottage was owner-occupied from the start. Tucked away on the quiet (and appropriately named) Pleasant Street, the George Cobb House is one of the most beautiful old Victorians in the neighborhood. An early resident was George Washington Cobb (1840-1925) was a druggist who ran an apothecary in East Boston, and he made the long commute there every day from this house. The property has a mansard roof with pedimented dormer and three-story tower capped by a bell-cast mansard roof. Paneled pilasters and brackets add a lot of detail to the primary facade.

First Baptist Church in Newton // 1888

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The Boston area has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to Richardsonian Romanesque style buildings, due in part to its namesake, Henry Hobson Richardson lived and worked locally. One of my all-time favorites is the First Baptist Church in Newton Centre. The church was designed by architect John Lyman Faxon, who was clearly influenced by Richardson. The First Baptist Church in Newton is among the oldest Baptist congregations in the state. Baptists were recorded as living in Newton as early as the 1720’s, but growth was slow and marked by persecution. In 1780, a congregation was assembled and the next year a rough, unplastered barn like meeting house was begun alongside Baptist Pond (now Crystal Lake). Fifteen years later, the congregation was finally able to afford a stove; twenty one years later, in 1802, the structure was enlarged. In 1836, the congregation constructed a larger meeting house in a more convenient location, the corner of Beacon and Center Streets. The second building was remodelled in 1856 and 1869 and finally was moved from the site to make way for the present church, the third meeting house, dedicated in November 1888. The First Baptist Church is undergoing some work at the exterior at the time of the photo, but the amazing brownstone trim and the winged creatures on four sides of the octagonal tower still shine!

Sudbury Aqueduct Waste Weir Control House // 1878

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The Sudbury Aqueduct was constructed between 1875 and 1878 and runs for 16 miles from Framingham, Massachusetts to the Chestnut Hill Reservoir in Boston, and was in use for almost 100 years. It was designed to carry water from the watershed of the Sudbury River to Boston and its surrounding communities, supplying the ever growing metro area with fresh drinking water. Along the route, meter and control houses were built along with the Echo Bridge, to guide the running water to Boston for distribution all over the city. City architect of Boston, George A. Clough designed many of the structures along the route including this waste weir structure in Newton Centre. The weir was known as “Clarks Waste Weir” as it was built on the edge of land owned by Charles P. Clark. The aqueduct was taken out of regular service in 1978 but remains an emergency backup. Much of the aqueduct’s route is open to the public as an unimproved walking trail.

Charles H. Bennett Cottage // c.1868

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Another of the charming gingerbread cottages in Newton Centre built on Charles Davis’ “Mount Pleasant” estate is this charmer. Like the Charles Davis rental cottage on Pleasant Street nearby, this home was rented by Mr. Davis to tenants briefly before it was purchased by George A. Rollins who later sold the property to its longest owner, Charles H. Bennett, a Boston stockbroker. The house is one of four near-identical gingerbread cottages developed by Davis, all retain their decorative bargeboard trim and porch detailing. This one may be my favorite!

Mount Pleasant Estate // c.1856

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One of the surviving old estates in Newton is Mount Pleasant, one of the oldest in Newton Centre. The home was originally built in the 1850s by Roswell Willard Turner, who acquired large land holdings in Newton Centre. The large property was eventually purchased by Charles S. Davis, an associate of the Boston piano manufacturing firm of Hallett & Davis. As Newton Centre developed, he enlarged his own home in the 1860s, and sold off his holdings, developing the surrounding area with charming Gothic Revival cottages on Mount Pleasant, the hill upon which his property gained its name. His own home was enlarged and includes elongated additions, a tower with hipped roof, and arched windows.

Hooper Mansion // 1889

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One of the finest Richardsonian Romanesque style mansions in America is this stunner at the corner of Beacon and Hereford streets in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood. Built in 1889, the mansion was commissioned as a private residence for Robert Chamblet Hooper (1849-1908) and his wife, Helen Angier Ames Hooper. Helen’s father, Frederick Lothrop Ames one of the wealthiest men in Massachusetts and major benefactor to in the town of Easton, funded and oversaw construction of the Ames Free Library and the Easton Town Hall both by H. H. Richardson in his namesake Romanesque style. It was likely her family’s prevalence for the style that led to her own home in Boston’s Back Bay to follow suit. The firm of Andrews and Jacques are credited with designing the stately mansion which in 1889, cost over $100,000 to build. Robert Chamblet Hooper was treasurer and later president of the Constitution Wharf Company. A noted dog fancier, he was owner of “Judge” (also known as “Hooper’s Judge”), credited as the ancestor of the Boston Terrier breed. So we have the Hooper’s to thank for Boston’s iconic mascot! In 1913, the building transferred from the Hoopers to Mabel Slater, daughter of painter William Morris Hunt (and niece of architect Richard Morris Hunt) an eccentric widow and inventor. Mrs. Slater is credited with developing an ice-cooled refrigerator, a sleeping bag that doubled as a garment used by soldiers in World War I, and a doll head with movable eyes. Mabel routinely left open a rear door of the mansion in order to encourage the poor to find their way into the kitchen for shelter and food. She had a one-story ballroom built at the rear of the mansion in 1914. The house was converted into 6 condominium units in 2016 and restored at the exterior thanks to the architecture and design studio, Hacin.

Pope-Barron Townhouse // 1871

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Merry Christmas to those who celebrate! As there is no snow on the ground in Boston, I wanted to share a house with a prominent pine tree, which resembles an oversized urban Christmas tree on Beacon Street. This house at the corner of Beacon and Fairfield streets was built in 1871 by architect and builder Frederick B. Pope on speculation. It did not sell as quickly as he would have hoped, and it took two years for it to finally sell at public auction in 1873. The relatively modest brick Second Empire style house was bought and sold numerous times until March 1905, when the residence was purchased by Clarence Walker Barron, a prominent publisher and journalist. In 1903, he purchased Dow Jones & Company and from 1912 until his death in 1928, he was its president. During this period, he was also de facto manager of The Wall Street Journal, he expanded its daily circulation, modernized its printing press operations, and deepened its reporting capabilities. In 1921, he founded Barron’s National Financial Weekly, later renamed Barron’s Magazine. Barron pushed for the intense scrutiny of corporate financial records, and for this reason is considered by many to be the founder of modern financial journalism. In 1920, he investigated Charles Ponzi, inventor of the “Ponzi scheme”. His aggressive questioning and common-sense analysis helped lead to Ponzi’s arrest and conviction. For his Boston townhouse, Barron hired the firm of Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson to completely renovate the dwelling with an extra floor, limestone facades, and more bold roof design.