The John Bottume House in Stoneham, Massachusetts was built c.1858, this stone house was one of several built along the shore of Spot Pond by a Boston businessman as a retreat, and is the only one to survive. The coursed granite residence is an excellent and high-style example of the Italianate architecture style. It is owned today by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, and houses the visitors center for the Middlesex Fells Reservation.
Spot Pond, now encompassed by the Middlesex Fells Reservation, became a site of country retreats for Boston businessmen in the mid-late 19th century. One of the property owners was Charles Copeland, a confectioner and ice cream dealer, had ice houses on Spot Pond where he harvested ice for production into ice cream in Boston area shops. Copeland’s main house was located near the ice houses at the eastern shores of the pond, but this home was also owned by him in the 1870s. This residence was possibly rented out by Copeland or occupied by one of his many children. It remains a great example of the Stick and Shingle styles of architecture. The residence is maintained as part of the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation’s property in the Fells Reservation park.
Built in the 1840’s as a carriage barn, and once attached to a nearby mansion now gone, this barn sits near the eastern shores of Spot Pond, a major feature in the Middlesex Fells Reservation, just north of Boston. The barn sits in Stoneham, Massachusetts, and was a part of Frederic Tudor’s rural estate out in the “country”. Frederic Tudor is best known as Boston’s “Ice King”, he was the founder of the Tudor Ice Company and a pioneer of the international ice trade in the early 19th century. He made a fortune shipping ice cut from New England ponds to ports in the Caribbean, Europe, and as far away as India and Hong Kong. After the turn of the 20th century, many of the buildings surrounding Spot Pond were razed as to secure the watershed, protecting the surrounding town’s drinking water. Frederic Tudors large estate was razed, but the barn survived. Years of deferred maintenance and lack of preservation by the late 1990’s made the old barn threatened with demolition. This was exacerbated by a fire damaging the roof and in 2003, a wall collapsed. Local preservationists rallied together to acquire funding (both private and public grants) to restore the building. It remains a highlight on the walks around Spot Pond and Middlesex Fells Reservation, and is a visual link to the earlier days in what was once remote “Boston”.
The Middlesex Reservoir and Spot Pond are located just north of Boston and have long been a little piece of the outdoors near the heart of New England’s largest metropolitan area. In 1894, the Massachusetts Legislature established the Metropolitan Parks Commission, which was endowed with the authority to acquire, maintain, and make recreational spaces available to the public. By 1900 the new commission had acquired 1,881 acres for the reservation. Part of this reservation, Spot Pond, is a natural water feature that for a number of years was integrated into the Boston area public drinking water supply, servicing the towns of Stoneham, Melrose, and Malden with drinking water. As part of this, gatehouses were built with hardware to open and close the pipes delivering the water to the adjacent towns. This gatehouse is in Stoneham was built in 1900 by the architectural firm of Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, to not only protect the machinery inside, but to beautify the parkland, then maintained by the Metropolitan Parks Commission. The Renaissance Revival style building is today surrounded by a tall chain link fence, which really diminishes its presence in the landscape (but it does help prevent graffiti).
Buildings of New England 