Tudor Revival

William and Kathleen Fuller House // 1905

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This handsome Tudor residence was built around 1905 for William Oliver Fuller (1856-1941) and his wife, Kathleen Stephens Fuller (1869-1948), and can be found at the corner of Beech and Lincoln streets in the finest neighborhood in Rockland, Maine. Although an architect could not be established at this time, the high-style residence features half-timbered gables, an inset front porch framed by stone pillars, and an absolutely perfect color palette. William Fuller was a newspaper publisher, who created his first newspaper, the Rockland Enterprise when he was 18 years old and in high school. He would go on to become the editor and publisher of the Courier-Gazette, the region’s main newspaper. Kathleen Fuller frequented the newspaper herself through her published poetry and columns and would later become an associate editor and co-owner of the paper.

Former Newton Centre Branch Library // 1927

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Formerly the Newton Centre Branch Library, this building was one of five branch libraries funded in Newton, Massachusetts by citizen subscription between 1926 and 1939 and turned over to the city. Like most of the others, the building is a small-scale, one story brick library of a Tudor Revival style. The building was designed by the firm of Ritchie, Parsons & Taylor and constructed in 1927. Architect James H. Ritchie was born and educated in Scotland, relocating to Boston and lived in Newton Centre, in two houses he built for his family. The Newton Centre Branch Library was one of the six branch libraries to close in 1991 when the main library opened, consolidating the neighborhood libraries under one roof; the remaining four closed in 2008 due to a budget cut. Today the Newton Centre branch library building serves as the Newton Health Department offices. Thanks to the Community Preservation Act, funds have been allocated to preserve and restore the building for another 100 years.

Tudor Lodge // c.1850

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A rambling Gothic Revival style house in the mode of the picturesque Gothic estates in England, can be found tucked away in Newport, Rhode Island. This is Tudor Lodge, a stuccoed summer “cottage” notable for its stucco siding, moulding over all the windows, broad crenellated parapets, and a hip-roof porte-cochère in front of the principal entrance. The house was supposedly originally built as a summer residence for Nicholas Redwood Easton around 1850. After his death, the property was purchased by members of the Gibbs (Gibbes) Family, who owned much of the land in this part of town, giving nearby Gibbs Avenue its name. The property was purchased around 1900 by William Rogers Morgan, a New York City banker, who greatly remodeled and named the estate, Tudor Lodge, giving the house its present appearance. The estate was converted to four condominium units in 1980.

Fred Holland Day House // 1892

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The Day House is a significant landmark in Norwood, Massachusetts. Originally built in 1861 for Lewis Day (1835-1910), a wealthy Boston leather dealer who was born in town. The house was a two-story Second Empire style mansion with mansard roof and detached stable. During 1890-92 the Day House was rebuilt at the direction of the Lewis’ son, F. Holland Day, who hired Boston architect J. Williams Beal to remodel the house in the Tudor Revival style. Fred Holland Day (1864 – 1933) was a prominent photographer and publisher and was an early and vocal advocate for accepting photography as a fine art. Day’s life and works were controversial because he took an unconventional approach to religious subjects and often photographed males nude sometimes the photos being homoerotic, leading many to speculate he was gay, though he never “came out”. Fred Holland Day died in 1933 and the house is today owned and managed by the Norwood Historical Society as a historic house museum.

Richmond Court // 1898

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Believe it or not, but this apartment building on Beacon Street in Brookline, Massachusetts is one of the most significant buildings of the type in the Boston area! This is Richmond Court, which is one of the oldest (if not the first) apartment house built in the northeastern United States that resembled an English Tudor manor house. The apartment building was constructed in 1898 from plans by architect Ralph Adams Cram, one of the best American architects of the late 19th and 20th centuries. Cram even moved into the building briefly before moving into a townhouse in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston. The building set the tone architecturally for later apartment buildings in the Boston area, with many architects attempting (largely not as effectively) to design Tudor-influenced apartment buildings regionally. The development is also significant in that at a time when most Boston-area developers were building apartment houses that maximized the buildable square footage, as they do to this day, Richmond Court included a landscaped courtyard to provide residents with more light and air circulation. The development also included two separate town houses on either side of the apartment block.

Longwood Towers // 1925

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No trip to Longwood in Brookline would be complete without checking in on one of the finest multi-family housing developments of New England… This is Longwood Towers. The development was originally built in 1925 from plans by architectural/engineering firm Kenneth DeVos and Co. who built three near-identical developments in the early 1920s: Detroit (1922), Brookline (1925), and finally Philadelphia (1928). The complexes were all originally called Alden Park Manor. Kenneth DeVos worked with local architects for each project to oversee construction details and furnish interior detailing as needed. For Brookline, he hired Harold Field Kellogg, who earlier served as the first director of the Boston Housing Authority. The design is Tudor Revival in style with towers connected by social spaces and a lobby linking the towers with a dining room for residents, a ballroom, lounge, day care facilities, barber and beauty shops, and a garage. The idea of a parking garage incorporated into an apartment complex was a very new idea when these were built, so much so it was written about as a new amenity for future developments to emulate. Another interesting tidbit about the complex is that it was featured in architectural journals in 1926 as it solved the “garbage problem” with trash chutes on each floor which terminated down in a brick incinerator (no longer in use). The Longwood Towers in Brookline were eyed as innovative and set trends for later developments, here’s to hoping future developers take cues to what makes good design and finishes rather than just profit with so many new boxy, uninspiring 5-over-1 apartment buildings going up all over the region.

A. M. Donna end House // 1928

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Abraham Malcolm Sonnabend was born in Boston on December 8, 1896, the son of Esther and Joseph Sonnabend. Sonnabend graduated from Harvard College in 1917 in order to enlist at the outbreak of the Great War. At the end of World War I, Sonnabend joined his father’s real estate organization. He married Esther Lewitt in 1920, and by 1927, he had increased his real estate holdings to a net worth of $350,000. Just before the 1929 stock market crash, Sonnabend hired Boston architect Sumner Schein to design this Tudor Revival style home, on a site formerly occupied by a larger Queen Anne style residence. Built in 1928, the Tudor Revival house features clinker brick walls with cast stone trim and a two-story castellated bay all capped by a slate roof. The enterprising A. M. Sonnabend would eventually outgrow this modest Tudor home after he got into hotels as investments. In 1944, Sonnabend (with seven partners) acquired a package of Palm Beach, Florida hotels for $2.4 million including the Biltmore, Whitehall and the Palm Beach Country Club. He would sell the Biltmore to Conrad Hilton for a massive profit. In 1956, Sonnabend created the Hotel Corporation of America (HCA) and grew the business to new heights. The 1928 Sonnabend House is significant architecturally and as the first purpose-built property by the late-developer.

Ashton Croft Mansion and Carriage House // c.1892

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Tucked behind the Jesse Lee Memorial Church on Main Street in Ridgefield, you will find this stately Queen Anne/Tudor Revival estate. The ‘Ashton Croft’ Manor House, now called Wesley Hall, is part of the Jesse Lee Memorial United Methodist Church complex and it has been modified several times blending two distinct styles into a single, pleasing composition. This house was originally constructed by Henry and Elizabeth Hawley circa 1892 in the Queen Anne style. The house was later sold to Electa Matilda Ziegler, a wealthy New York City widow in 1912, who reconfigured the structure to include half-timbering on the gables and upper story walls in the Tudor Revival style. She spent summers at a mansion in Darien, Connecticut, and would sell her Ridgefield property to Sanford H.E. Freund, a New York City attorney. The local order of Odd Fellows bought the estate from the Freund family in 1956. Three years later, the organization sold most of the property — retaining the carriage house for its lodge — to Jesse Lee Methodist Church, which planned to eventually build a new church there to replace the old one at Main and Catoonah Streets. Today, the entire former Ashton Croft estate is owned by the local Methodist Church and is known as Wesley Hall.

West Gouldsboro Village Library // 1907

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One of the few libraries in Maine built in the Tudor Revival style can be found in the quaint coastal town of Gouldsboro. This library was built in 1907 from plans by Maine architect Frederick L. Savage after members of town sought a community space where they could meet and check out books. The small one-story building sits upon a tall fieldstone foundation and with a stuccoed exterior above. The entrance consists of a single door flanked by sidelight windows topped by an elliptical hood, above which sits within the half-timbered gable front. The small library was in operation until 1956. It reopened briefly in 1990, but closed again. It is owned by the West Gouldsboro Village Improvement Association. Historic library buildings are the best!

Hastings House // c.1941

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Many neighborhoods in New England held on to historical revival styles even when the International style and Mid-Century Modern homes began to proliferate all across the region. Some owners (even today) prefer traditionally designed houses to blend into their surroundings and historical context. This charming gingerbread Tudor Revival style house in Fairfield is one of them! The Hastings House was built in 1941 and designed by the powerhouse design couple of Cameron Clark (architect) and Agnes Clark (landscape architect) who designed and renovated properties all over Fairfield. The house is notable for its use of stucco with half-timbering, steeply pitched roofline, red tile roof, and more Colonial-inspired door treatments.