New England History Blog

Rebecca Maxwell Phillips House // 1806

Buildings of New England1 Comment

The Rebecca Maxwell Phillips House at 26 State Street in Warren, Rhode Island, is one of the state’s finest examples of the Federal style of architecture, though the building was funded through profits off of enslaved people. The house was funded by Warren resident, Squire James Maxwell for his daughter, Rebecca, and is traditionally said to have been a wedding present or possibly a gift to potential suitors to his daughter. The Maxwell family’s immense wealth was partially resulted from the illegal sale of enslaved Africans, including those illegally transported on his schooner, Abigail, which left Warren in September 1789. The captain of the vessel, Charles Collins, purchased 64 slaves on the coast of Africa, and sold them in the Americas by June of 1790. Of the 64 captives embarked on the ship, only 53 survived the voyage. This home was occupied by Rebecca Maxwell and her new husband, William Phillips. The three-story mansion exhibits a pedimented fanlight transom, corner quoins, and a shallow hipped roof. The property is located on an oversized lot which contains a massive Japanese Beech tree in the side yard, which is said to have been brought from Japan by Commodore Joel Abbot, who lived nearby, in 1853.

Maxwell House // c.1755

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

The Maxwell House in Warren, Rhode Island, is a striking example of mid-18th-century colonial architecture and one of the oldest brick dwellings in the waterfront town. Built before 1755, the house is one of the finest brick Georgian-era residences in New England with its characteristic Flemish bond brickwork, fieldstone foundation, wood-frame gable ends, and massive central chimney that anchors its historic pre-Revolutionary form. Originally constructed for the Reverend Samuel Maxwell (1688-1778) and later home to members of the Maxwell family, prominent shipowners, merchants, and slave-owners in town. The Maxwell family’s wealth was tied to the maritime economy of the era, which tells the story of many Rhode Island merchants of the time, who participated in the trans-Atlantic slave trade that enriched local elites and shaped the region’s economic growth, a history that communities are increasingly confronting alongside preservation efforts to this day. Today, the Maxwell House serves as a house museum preserved by the Massasoit Historical Association, who (hopefully) share the full story of the house, from its architecture to funding to construct it.

Miss Grace Nichols House // 1913

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

Located at the western end of Chestnut Street in the Flat of Beacon Hill, you will find this stucco residence, one of the finest mansions in Boston. The four-story residence with two entrances is built of brick and covered with stucco and was constructed for Miss Grace Nichols (1874-1944), the daughter of John Howard Nichols, who worked for John Lowell Gardner (the husband of Isabella Stewart Gardner) as a merchant transporting goods between Boston and Chinese markets, before overseeing mills. As a single woman, Grace inherited much of her parents wealth upon their deaths, and in 1913, hired architect, William Chester Chase, to design her Beacon Hill home in the Italian Renaissance Revival style, similar to Isabella Stewart Gardner’s Fenway Court mansion (1903). Grace Nichols married Richard Pearson Strong, a Harvard professor and medical researcher, in 1936 and the couple lived here with servants until their deaths in 1944 and 1948 respectively. After their death, the building was either purchased by or willed to the Boston Society of Natural History and the New England Museum of Natural History, which moved out of their Berkeley Street location in 1946. The Nichols Mansion served as the new Boston Museum of Science until 1951, when the new and current museum was built between Boston and Cambridge. Today, the former Nichols mansion is five condominium units, with owners having one of the most enchanting and unique properties in the exclusive Beacon Hill neighborhood.

Elizabeth G. Evans – Edward A. Filene House // 1883

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

This unique brick house at 12 Otis Place in Beacon Hill was built in 1883 by the architect, Carl Fehmer for attorney Glendower Evans and his wife, Elizabeth Gardiner. Mr. Evans died in 1886 of Hodgkin’s Disease at just 30 years of age. His widow, Elizabeth Glendower Evans (1856-1937) was greatly influenced by her husband during their brief marriage, even taking her husband’s first name as her middle name after his death. Elizabeth Glendower Evans became a prominent social activist, studying child labor conditions in the South and took up the cause of women’s suffrage and the associated problems of tenements and factory work arising from disenfranchisement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1915 Evans served as a delegate to the International Congress of Women at the Hague. She was the first National Organizer of the Woman’s Peace Party. From 1920 until 1937 she served as a national director of the American Civil Liberties Union. In the 1910s, Elizabeth sold the home to Edward Albert Filene (1860-1937), who, together with his younger brother Abraham Lincoln Filene, reorganized his father’s department store into “William Filene’s Sons Company”, which would later become Filene’s. He was a supporter of credit unions to help ordinary American workers to access loans at reasonable rates and allow workers to save their money so that when hard times hit, they were prepared.

William and Octavia Apthorp Mansion // 1885

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

This unique four-story brick townhouse on Otis Place in Beacon Hill, Boston, was built in 1885 by the architectural firm of Rotch & Tilden for Mrs. Octavia L. Apthorp and her husband, William F. Apthorp. Elevated on a tall brick basement, the exterior of the house is richly detailed with masonry decoration in what has become known as the “panel brick” style; with an elaborate brick entrance archway, paneled pilasters at the third floor, and vertical brick lintels above the windows. Over the ground floor windows near the entrance, iron grates with spear-like finials give the design a Medieval/English Queen Anne presence. William F. Apthorp was the only son of Robert Apthorp, a prominent Boston attorney and abolitionist who lived across the street at 2 Otis Place. William was a pianist and teacher at the New England Conservatory of Music and writer who married Octavia (sometimes spelled Octavie) Loir Iasigi in 1876, she was also from a well-connected Beacon Hill family.

Pickering-Apthorp Houses // 1870

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

These two near-identical townhouses at 1 & 2 Otis Place in Beacon Hill are significant architecturally and as they are bounded by four streets. The unique lots were created when Otis Place was laid out on made land in 1869 and were built the following year as an identical pair sharing a party wall and with their front facades facing south on Otis Place. The two residences were designed by the firm of Ware and Van Brunt, who blendedSecond Empire and Victorian Gothic styles with gothic arched windows, bracketed cornices, slate mansard roof, and later Colonial Revival porticos added in 1916 by architect, Frank A. Bourne. No. 1 Otis Place (right side with the oriel bay window) was first owned by Henry G. Pickering, a dealer in engines and machinery at the height of New England’s industrial revolution. No. 2 Otis Place (left with later fanlight entry), was originally owned by Robert E. Apthorp, an attorney and realtor, who decades earlier, was an active member of the Boston Vigilance Committee, the group established to harbor and assist fugitives from slavery after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in September 1850.

Mrs. Martin’s School – Jenks & Gaugengigl Studio // 1872

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

This unique three-story building on Otis Place in Beacon Hill, Boston, was actually constructed in 1872 by owner/architect, Abel C. Martin (1831-1879) as a school run by his wife, Clara Barnes Martin (1838-1886). Clara B. Martin was born in Maine to Phineas Barnes, a prominent publisher in Portland, who educated his daughter at the best schools. She in turn, became a writer and educator herself, writing a book about Mount Desert Island in Maine and publishing articles in national papers, along with operating a school in this building, designed and owned by her husband as they lived next door. After Clara died in 1886, the property was sold by the Martin heirs and in 1895, renovated into artist studios with two floors of large windows to provide natural light for the work inside. The building was owned and operated as artist studios by Ignatz M. Gaugengigl (1855-1932), a Bavarian-born artist who spent most of his professional life in Boston and was a prominent member of The Boston School, and Phoebe Jenks (1847 – 1907), a portrait painter who divided her career between New York and Boston. The building, while heavily altered, showcases the history of the Beacon Hill Flat neighborhood, which, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, became a popular place for artists and Bohemians, who renovated existing houses and stables in the Arts and Crafts, neo-Federal and other fashionable styles into loft spaces and studios. The 1895 renovation was undertaken by architect, Edgar Allen Poe Newcomb, who was the nephew of sculptor, Thomas Ball, likely providing him insight into the design of artist studios.

Martin-Ware House // 1872

Buildings of New England1 Comment

One of the most interesting houses in Beacon Hill is this unique Second Empire style townhouse with towering two-story mansard roof at 3 Otis Place/49 Brimmer Street. When walking around Boston and exploring other cities, it is always fun to delve into research and learn about the built environment and the stories that brought these places to be! This residence was constructed in 1872 on land that was filled here between 1867 and 1869 formerly occupied by the Charles River. Creating the land at and around Otis Place was one of a series of responses to the need for more physical space in Boston and to cover the pollution of the Charles River along the West End and what would become the Back Bay. The houses at 3-4 Otis Place were originally owned and designed by architect, Abel C. Martin, who resided next door to the topic of this post until his death. In the early 20th century, this house was owned by Charles Eliot Ware Jr. a publisher, who in 1929, hired architect, Charles Greely Loring to add the copper-clad oriel window on the north elevation and elevate the mansard roof to create the unique two-story mansard. The old Martin-Ware house has been apartments since at least the 1960s.

Samuel and Emily Eliot Rowhouses // 1871

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

These three identical three-story houses at 156, 158 & 160 Mt. Vernon Street in Beacon Hill Flat were built in 1871 as income producing properties for Samuel and Emily Otis Eliot who lived next door on the corner of Brimmer Street. The architect is not evident from my research, but they were likely designed by Abel C. Martin, who furnished speculative housing for the Eliot’s elsewhere in the neighborhood. All three residences feature brick facades with off-center recessed entries on raised stoops. The use of brownstone lintels and sills, decorative brick cornice, and second-story hexagonal oriel windows add intrigue to the design, along with the slate mansard roofs. The three houses were sold or rented and all were owned by various families, but notable owners of the central house include the architect George Russell Shaw (1848-1937) of the firm Shaw and Hunnewell through the early 1900s. Later in the 20th century, the house was owned by Kevin White (1929-2012), who served as the mayor of Boston for four terms from 1968 to 1984.
All three residences are well-preserved and look much as they did when constructed over 150 years ago.

Sunflower Castle // 1878

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

This absolutely unusual and enchanting cottage on Mount Vernon Street in Beacon Hill, Boston, was originally was constructed in the 1840s but completely altered decades later in its distinctive English Queen Anne style. In 1878, Frank Hill Smith, an artist and interior designer, worked with architect, Clarence Luce to renovate what was originally a two-story Greek Revival house into one of the most eclectic and unique residences in New England. The Sunflower Castle, a name reputedly coined by Oliver Wendell Holmes, features a yellow stucco first floor with the upper floors covered with red fish-scale shingles. Further detail includes the half-timbering, decorative panels depicting a gryffin and a sunflower in the gable, and carved wood frieze over the doorway. Clarence Luce was likely so inspired by this project, that he built an even more extravagant example of this house for Edward Stanwood in Brookline soon after. By 1903, the property was sold to the painter, Gertrude Beals Bourne and her husband, architect, Frank A. Bourne, who were both key players in the revival and gentrification of the Beacon Hill Flat neighborhood west of Charles Street in the early 20th century. The Sunflower Castle was used as their home and as an artist’s studio for the couple, with Frank adding the side garden wall with tile-roofed gateway to enclose a private open space. The property remains as a private residence.