Rockport House

The Billingsgate Cottage // 1892

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In 1892, this large summer “cottage” was built in the Land’s End section on the coast of Rockport, Massachusetts. The large summer residence was built for the Thatcher sisters of Roxbury and was named “The Billingsgate” after their mother’s maiden name, Billings. Caroline Billings Thatcher would summer here with upwards of her four other sisters, Lillian, Margaret, Mary, and Elizabeth, to escape from the city. The large summer cottage features a rubblestone first floor with stone columns supporting the shingled floor above. A large gambrel roof and dormers punctuate the façade and showcase the simplicity and elegance of the Shingle style.

Haskins Cottage // c.1910

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Another great turn-of-the-century summer cottage in Rockport’s Headlands neighborhood is this c.1910 Craftsman house on Norwood Street. The listed early owner was L. S. Haskins who likely utilized the house as a summer residence. Architecturally, the cottage follows the Craftsman form with a low-sloped roof with broad eaves, shed dormer, exposed rafters, and rubblestone foundation and columns of stones taken from the site and nearby neighborhood.  

John Achorn House // c.1855

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This stately Italianate style house is located at 46 Pascal Avenue in the quaint coastal town of Rockport, Maine. Built around 1855 by and for John Achorn (1825-1898) a ship-joiner and carpenter in town. Due to his profession in carpentry, Achorn is the likely culprit as the builder who designed the house and detailed the delicate pendant brackets, Palladianesque window, and the addition of the flushboard center bay.

Oak Knoll Cottage // c.1877

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One of the earlier cottages built in the Oceanview summer colony of Rockport, Massachusetts is this charming example of a late-Italianate style residence on Phillips Avenue. Local lore states that the cottage was owned by Lucy Canney, the wife of Edwin Canney, who operated multiple granite quarries in town. Oak Knoll was possibly used as a boarding house for visiting guests of the quarries to stay at when inspecting the quality of the granite. The Canney’s sold off much of their property in the area by the end of the 19th century, and the cottage was later owned or occupied by Dr. Helen Morton (1834-1916), a Boston-based obstetrician and one of the early generation of women physicians practicing in Boston in the nineteenth century. Dr. Morton spent most of her time in a townhouse on Marlborough Street in Boston’s Back Bay with her possible partner, another obstetrician, Mary Forrester Hobart, but likely escaped to this cottage for some rest and relaxation for the summers.

Eben Phillips Cottage // c.1877

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In the mid-1800s, Rockport, Massachusetts was best-known as one of the main ports for the quarrying and shipping of fine granite up and down the east coast of the United States. While the rocky coastline made granite a prime industry, the natural scenery also made the coastal areas desirable for residential development. While many of the coastal developments here never took-off as they did in nearby Gloucester, Magnolia, and Beverly, there are some notable summer colonies that sprouted up! In 1855, Eben B. Phillips an oil dealer in Boston, purchased undeveloped wooded lots and pastures, and slowly began to lay out roads and survey for developable lots for summer cottages on a peninsula near Pigeon Cove. The development was named “Oceanview” and it was marketed as the extreme point of Cape Ann. Development was very slow to materialize, and started in earnest in the 1870s. Eben Phillips built this summer cottage before 1877 (possibly as early as 1850), where he would spend summers until his death in 1879. The cottage retains much of its original character and is a rare survivor of the rustic style cottages which were built before the phase of larger Shingle and Queen Anne residences were built in later decades.