victorian homes Boston

Kramer-Duane House // 1895

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One of five houses built by developer Albert Jewell along Powell Street in the Cottage Farm neighborhood of Brookline, this residence stands out for its materiality and stately design. The house was designed by J. Williams Beal, an architect who trained at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and then worked for McKim, Mead & White before opening his own business. The house was first purchased from Mr. Jewell by Grace and Edwin Kramer, who worked as superintendent for R. H. White & Co., the large dry goods store in Boston. The next long-term owner was Harry B. Duane, a wealthy grocer. The Kramer-Duane House is unique for the stone veneer at its facade, gambrel roof covered in slate, and varied window styles including: bay windows, dormer windows, and an eyebrow dormer window at the roof.

Roughwood // 1891

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Roughwood is a historic estate house on Heath Street in Brookline, Massachusetts. The main residence and the various outbuildings on the grounds were designed by the Boston architectural firm of Andrews, Jaques and Rantoul, and built in 1891 as the summer estate of William Cox, a wholesale dealer in the footwear industry. Mr. Cox died in 1902 and the property was sold to Ernest Dane, the year before he married Helen Pratt, the daughter of Charles Pratt, a wealthy New York businessman and philanthropist. Mr. Dane was a banker who served as President of the Brookline Trust Company. The Dane’s owned the property for decades until the property was eventually purchased by Pine Manor Junior College in 1961. The estate house remained a centerpiece of the campus. In the early 21st century, Pine Manor College saw financial distress, and was saved by Boston College, who acquired the campus and its existing students as Messina College, which opened in July 2024 for over 100 first-generation college students. Architecturally, Roughwood is a high-style example of the Queen Anne/Shingle style of architecture. The mansion is built with a puddingstone and brownstone first floor and a second floor of varied patterns of wood shingles, all capped by a slate roof. The facade is dominated by towers and dormers and the great rustic entrance portico with dragon’s head brackets. To its side, a 1909 Tudor Revival addition served as a music room for the Dane’s family and while stylistically unique, is designed with impeccable proportions.

Frank and Elizabeth Ratcliffe House // 1890

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I do not think that I have ever seen rounded shingled columns like this before… What a treat! This house is located on Rice Street in Newton Centre, and was built in 1890 by Henry H. Read, a leather dealer who developed the entire street. This house was built on speculation and initially rented out to tenants before it was sold to Frank Ratcliffe and his wife, Elizabeth Ratcliffe. Frank Ratcliffe was born in England and would become treasurer of the Boston & Albany Railroad, which had a stop in Newton Centre. Frank and Elizabeth would sell or gift this property to their daughter, Mary Elizabeth Ratcliffe Holt and her husband, Warner R. Holt. Besides the unique shingled columns, the house features a broad gambrel roof and sunburst panels and a two-story rounded shingled bay. I could not locate the architect for this one, sadly.

Henry S. Chase House // c.1882

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One of the many “hidden” gems of old houses in Brookline is this charmer on Francis Street, just west of the Longwood district. The residence was built by 1882, by Henry Savage Chase (1825-1885) who lived in a larger stone mansion across St. Paul Street (no longer extant). This house was rented out by Chase, possibly to friends and remained in the family for decades. This early Queen Anne style dwelling (and likely the main house) was designed by architect Edgar Allen Poe Newcomb, a relatively unknown architect of the period. The house has an irregular plan with varied siding and materials, with applied ornament that has survived intact for nearly 150 years.

William Potter Rental House // 1889

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William W. Potter, a shoe manufacturer and businessman, and his wife, Isabella Abbe Strickland Potter, lived in the Longwood section of Brookline and became active in the surround areas development in the last decades of the 19th century. William bought land off Kent Street and began to lay out house lots, becoming a developer overseeing construction of stately Queen Anne Victorian rental properties marketed to upper-middle-class residents. For this house on Francis Street, he commissioned architects George Rand and Bertram Taylor, who were known for producing stylish residential designs for the middle class in the Boston area. The massive property was a duplex, providing units to two lucky families! The building has just about every hallmark feature of the Queen Anne style including: the conical roof on a rounded corner bay, a complex roofline, asymmetrical plan, varied siding/materials, and applied ornamentation. In the 1920s, the house was owned by Simmons College, and used as a boarding house. Luckily, the property was restored and now is one of the finest residences in the neighborhood.

Webber Duplex // c.1890

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In the late 19th century, the Longwood section of Brookline, saw a second surge of development when larger pieces of land were sold by heirs of the original developers. On the lot across from the Longwood Towers and near the Longwood rail station, Maine-born lumber dealer, John Prescott Webber, built this two-family residence and rented it out for supplemental income. Webber lived in a large home on Beacon Street while renting this and other properties in town to middle-class commuters to Boston. The Queen Anne style residence exhibits a unique rusticated stone first floor with wide arched entry with Richardsonian Romanesque carved detailing.

Betteley Cottage // c.1883

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Albert Cabot Betteley (1816-1893) was an inventor and coal dealer in Boston. He invented an elevator to hoist goods into a warehouse, a peat grinder for the speedy drying of peat for fuel, and even patented wooden pavement…seriously. He eventually would build this home on Cobden Street in Roxbury where he and his wife Mary Jane would live out their retirement. While he didn’t “make it big” persay with his inventions, he exemplified the typical middle-class resident of Roxbury at the time and built this modest home, with its two-story form with octagonal bay, bracketed cornice, and mansard roof. The cottage was recently repainted the purple color, which I really enjoy!

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.