Victorian Architecture

Yale University – Farnam Hall // 1870

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Farnam Hall is Yale University’s oldest dormitory still in use. Designed by New York architect Russell Sturgis in a Ruskinian High Victorian Gothic style, Farnam Hall is considered Sturgis’s most important work and was completed in 1871, marking a new direction toward an enclosed campus, shielded off from the surrounding downtown district of New Haven. Named for Henry Farnam, its construction required the removal of the Second President’s House and a section of the Yale Fence, which was met with some trepidation. The red brick, four-story building originally consisted of twenty suites and ten common rooms on each floor. Sturgis, who was influenced by John Ruskin’s ideals put forward in his Seven Lamps of Architecture, used a variety of brick and stone on the facade all with hand carved detailing. Farnam Hall was renovated in 1977 by architect Edward Larrabee Barnes and today serves as a dormitory for first-year students belonging to Yale’s Jonathan Edwards College.

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.

Cushing-Fearing Townhouse // 1862

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168 Beacon in the Back Bay was built ca. 1861, one of two contiguous houses for Robert Maynard Cushing and his older brother, John Gardiner Cushing (more on the house nextdoor in the next post). This home was Robert Cushing’s home for him and his new wife Olivia Donaldson Dulany (m.1863). They also maintained a home, The Ledges, in Newport. The Cushing Family owned the townhouse until 1908, when it was sold following Robert’s death in 1907 by his estate to George Richmond Fearing, Jr., an investment banker. He also served as President of the Free Hospital for Women from 1910 to 1936. The home was recently renovated with a darker, brownstone facade, new copper gutters and downspouts and slate roof. It presently houses three condo units inside.

Storrow-Meyer Townhouses // 1862

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Two is always better than one, especially when it comes to historic townhouses! These two residences on Beacon Street in the Back Bay neighborhood were built in 1862 for two esteemed Boston families, the Storrows and the Meyers. 192 Beacon Street (right) was built as the home of Charles Storer Storrow and his wife, Lydia (Cabot Jackson) Storrow. Charles S. Storrow was an engineer by training and made his fortune as the chief engineer at the Essex Company, a company organized to harness the water power of the Merrimack River downstream from Lowell, Massachusetts in present-day. There, Storrow designed and built the Great Stone Dam across the Merrimack river, canals to distribute the water, several large textile mills, and a city, Lawrence, to house the mill workers. He came up with the idea to make roads that go to the mills in Lawrence, allowing him to become the first mayor of Lawrence in 1853. He retired and lived out his final years at this home in Boston. James J. Storrow, after whom Boston’s Storrow Drive is named, was Charles Storrow’s grandson. 194 Beacon Street (left) was built as the home of George Augustus Meyer and his wife, Grace Helen (Parker) Meyer. George Meyer was a prosperous German-American East India merchant and lived in this home until his death in 1889.

Peleg Chandler House // 1860

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One of the most ingeniously symmetrical and academic facades on Beacon Street in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston can be found at the Peleg Chandler House. Built in 1860 for Peleg Whitman Chandler (1816-1889), the two-bay bow-front townhouse appears to have been designed by architect Charles Kirk Kirby, a relatively unknown architect of Boston in this time period. The brownstone home originally had a mansard roof, but it was removed and replaced with a flat roof with parapet during the Great Depression, possibly to reduce the property taxes. Peleg Chandler was an attorney and publisher of the Law Reporter, which he established in 1838. He served as a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1845 to 1847 and as Boston City Solicitor from 1846 to 1853. He was an early advocate of the Public Garden and led efforts in 1859 to prevent the construction of houses on the eastern side of Arlington Street. The house has been divided up inside and now five fortunate families get to call this stunning building home!

Krogman-McManus Mansion // c.1890

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Built ca. 1890 for Boston salesman Washington Libby Krogman (1858-1894), one of Boston’s finest Queen Anne style homes can be found in the Clam Point neighborhood of Dorchester. The pronounced sculptural qualities of this residence, together with the juxtaposition of clapboards and patterned shingles, variety of window sizes, and ornamentation place this house squarely within the pantheon of important Queen Anne designs within the city of Boston. Painted in a manner that showcases its sheathing and ornament to great advantage, this well-preserved house is particularly noteworthy for its graceful verandah that encircles a distinctive, round, conically-capped tower at its northeast corner. The home was only occupied by Washington Krogman for less than four years when he died unexpectedly in 1894 at just 35 years of age. The property was deeded to his widow Carrie for a few years before she sold the property to Thomas Francis McManus, a noted naval architect (schooner designer). The home remains one of the finest mansions in Dorchester.

Wales House // 1883

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Built in 1883 for a member of the Thomas Wales family, this house in Clam Point, Dorchester, possesses a compact essentially rectangular clapboard and wood shingle-clad form. The architect, John A. Fox, designed the main façade elegantly with an open Stick style porch projecting from the center of the first floor which is enclosed by a steeply-pitched roof. The pitch of the porch roof is echoed in the small and shallow gable-like lintels which are really unique to the area. The treatment makes the facade read somewhat like a face.

Hersey-Noyes Double House // 1879

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Nothing beats a good Victorian-era house! This example in the Clam Point neighborhood of Dorchester does not disappoint. The Stick-style double-house was built for miss Mary E. Noyes and Ms. Hersey replacing an older house on the lot. The women hired architect John A. Fox to design the house which possesses one of the most complex forms and roof configurations in the neighborhood. Clad with clapboards at the first and second stories, its six intersecting gables are sheathed with scalloped shingles. At the main entrance on the façade is an open porch with square posts and railings with turned balusters. The side façade is even more complex with two side gables and a two-tier porch enlivened by Chinese Chippendale and spool work railings. The Herseys, along with Mary E. Noyes, co-owned the house until 1884; thereafter it was owned by Mary E. Noyes until around World War I. The stick style home really pops with that blue color, what do you think?

Freeman House // c.1870

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One of my favorites in Dorchester is this Second Empire manse, built c.1870 for cotton broker Freeman S. Packer. The house at 14 Everett Street in the Clam Point/Harrison Square neighborhood is a handsome, formal example of a Luther Briggs-designed Italianate Mansard residence. Although today sheathed in vinyl siding, much of the original siding and trim detail are likely still under there, preserved. Set back from the street facing an ample hedge-enclosed front yard, the three bay main façade exhibits a center pavilion and full-length front porch which undoubtedly appealed to summer guests who vacationed here when this house was known at the Russell House, an apartment hotel during the 1890s and early 1900s.

Whelen Cottage // c.1891

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For the last cottage on Grindstone Neck, I present the stunning Whelen Cottage. Charles S. Whelen (1850-1910), a banker and philanthropist who served as one of the directors of the Gouldsboro Land Improvement Company and as one of several of its stock agents in Philadelphia, purchased a house lot for him and his wife Migonette Violett. The couple did not hire Lindley Johnson, like so many other cottage-holders did, but they worked with esteemed architect Wilson Eyre to design the home. The Whelens were typical of the type of person who chose to summer on Grindstone. While comfortably well off, they were not in a financial position to commission the sort of cottages built on an ever increasing scale in Bar Harbor. The property left the Whelen’s ownership in 1897, and the house was altered and enlarged in 1900. The large porte cochere, porch, and additional rooms added at this time by William Winthrop Kent, an alumni of H. H. Richardson’s office.