Victorian

John D. Runkle House // 1875

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The John Runkle House on High Street, is one of the most interesting houses in Brookline. Built in 1875 for educator John Daniel Runkle (1822-1902), the brick residence excellently blends early Queen Anne form and flourish with Victorian Gothic design elements all with Stick style entry porches and dormers. John D. Runkle was a noted mathematician who later became the second President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1868 until 1878. This occurred before MIT moved over the Charles to Cambridge, so President Runkle would not have traveled far to the Institute when located in the Back Bay. The Runkle House was designed by the architectural firm of Weston & Rand with an irregular plan of elaborate belt courses in the brickwork that is set against the extremely steep slate roof with tall prominent chimneys and corner turret. Sadly, the residence is largely obscured by a tall wooden fence, but I caught it on a good day that a panel was down.

Loring-Sherburne House // 1883

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One of the many great Queen Anne/Shingle style homes in Brookline is this residence at 92 High Street built for Thacher Loring (1844-1928), president and treasurer of the National Dock and Warehouse Company, of Boston, founded by his father, Elisha Thacher Loring. For their Brookline home, Mr. Loring hired architect, William Ralph Emerson, one of the great architects who mastered the Shingle style of architecture. The Loring Family lived here until the early 1900s, when they sold the property and moved to the Back Bay in Boston. The property was purchased by John Henry Sherburne (1877-1959), who lived here with his family for over sixty years. John Sherburne was an attorney, politician, and military officer who served during the Pancho Villa Expedition, World War I, and World War II and attained the rank of brigadier general receiving numerous military awards, including the Silver Star and Purple Heart. During WWI, he commanded the U.S. Army’s first “negro” artillery battalion in France. After the war he testified before Congress about orders that pointlessly sent hundreds of U.S. soldiers from other units “over the top” to their deaths on the morning of November 11, 1918, when the armistice hour was already known. Following his World War I service, Sherburne advocated for civil rights for African Americans, including support for anti-lynching laws and from 1926 to 1931, he served on the board of trustees for Howard University. The Loring-Sherburne House is significant for its residents and for its architecture, including the use of brick and shingle siding, and the show-stopping recessed panel-wood entry with bulging shingles above.

Ambrose Burnside House // 1866

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What do this unique Victorian house and sideburns have in common? Well, you are about to find out!

The Ambrose Burnside House is sited on an oddly shaped, and sloping corner lot on Benefit Street in Providence’s East Side neighborhood, and is one of the most unique Second Empire style residences in New England. The house was built in 1866 for General Ambrose Burnside (1824-1881), a Union general in the American Civil War, who returned to Providence and was about to begin a term as governor, followed by two terms in the United States Senate. Ambrose Burnside hired local architect, Alfred Stone, to design his new city mansion, which upon completion, was deemed one of the most “modern residences” in Providence. Built of brick with Nova Scotia stone with a concave slate mansard roof and one-of-a-kind rounded corner bay, the Ambrose Burnside House does not disappoint! Ambrose Burnside died in 1881 and the property was occupied by his sister-in-law until the property was sold in 1884 and housed the Providence Children’s Friend Society House for Aged Women and the Providence Association for the Benefit of Colored Children, providing shelter and food for elderly women and children of color without parents or guardians. After WWII, the Burnside House was converted to apartments.

Now, to the sideburns… Ambrose Burnside was noted for his unusual beard, joining strips of hair in front of his ears to his mustache but with the chin clean-shaven; the word burnsides was coined to describe this style. The syllables were later reversed to give sideburns.

Jones-Sinclair House // 1865

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One of the finest Victorian-era residences in Portsmouth, the Jones-Sinclair House at 241 Middle Street, is a stately and oversized Second Empire style mansion built in the location of an even more significant home. Originally on this site, at the convergence of two busy streets, Thomas Haven, a wealthy merchant and half-brother to William Haven who lived across the street, built an impressive brick, Federal style mansion here in around 1818. Admiral George Washington Storer, Commander in Chief of the Brazil squadron of the U.S. Navy, later purchased the Federal style octagonal house. Mary Washington Storer, inherited the house after her father’s death in 1864, and she with her husband, Albert L. Jones, demolished the old octagonal-shaped house around 1865-1867, replacing it with this mansard-villa style mansion. By about 1890, Charles A. Sinclair and his wife, Emma, is said to have received the house as a gift from her uncle, the famous Portsmouth industrialist and politician, Frank Jones. 

Horatio Adams Stable // c.1880

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This oversized stable and carriage house is located at 3 Maple Street in Kingston, Massachusetts and it dates to about 1880. The stable was built for Horatio Adams (1845-1911), a wealthy resident who operated a successful slaughterhouse and stockyards nearby along with maintaining stores adjacent to the nearby the train tracks. After Horatio Adams died, the stable was eventually purchased by Edgar W. Loring and converted to a cranberry screen & warehouse for his cranberry farm. The significant Queen Anne/Stick style building suffered from deferred maintenance by the late 20th and early 21st centuries, but was purchased in recent years and undergoing a restoration of the exterior. Does anyone know what its use is today?

Four Winds Cottage // 1889

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Tucked away in the town of Hunter in the Catskill Mountains of New York, the summer colony of Twilight Park has stood as an exclusive and private resort community established in the late 19th century. Twilight Park was born out of the Twilight Club, a Manhattan social club in the late-19th century and brought to life by founder, Charles F. Wingate. Mr. Wingate traveled to the mountaintop in 1887, and became enamored by its natural beauty. He arranged for the purchase of a former sheep meadow and led the construction of the first cluster of cottages in what would become a large community of over 100 summer homes. Cottages were laid out on roughly parallel roads at different elevations and on old connecting paths that later became roads with all lots built on ledges overlooking the Catskills. The first cottages were log cabins, and quickly followed by larger, Queen Anne style “cottages” as others invested in the development. This cottage, known as “Four Winds”, was built in 1889 during the first phase of development in Twilight Park, and it is notable for its varied siding, wrap-around porch, bay window, and elevated siting to provide better views of the landscape.

Lynch House // 1889

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One of the most unique and enchanting houses in the Ashmont Hill neighborhood of Dorchester is the Lynch House (aka the Sunflower House) at 102 Ocean Street, a landmark example of the Queen Anne architectural style. This residence was designed in 1889 by architect Samuel J. Brown, who worked in the firm of Cummings and Sears before opening his own office in Boston, where he specialized in residential designs. The first owners were Edward C. Lynch, a stair builder, and his wife, Petronella P. Lynch, who was born in Sweden and emigrated to the United States. Architecturally, the Lynch House features a prominent gambrel roof that swells out over the second-floor inset windows, clapboard and shingle siding, sawtooth shingled details over the windows, and the sunflower motif in a panel at the third floor.

Frank and Laura Carter House // 1889

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Effortlessly blending the Shingle and Queen Anne architectural styles, the Frank and Laura Carter House at 107 Ocean Street in Ashmont, Dorchester, Massachusetts, is one of the finest Victorian residences in the neighborhood. The house was designed by famed local architect Arthur Vinal, who also furnished plans for the Dorchester Temple Baptist Church nearby that same year. The house was built for Frank Carter (1859-1950), treasurer of the Bay State Belting Company, and his new wife, Laura. Special details on the house include the polygonal bay capped by pyramidal roof, belt-course of shingles breaking up the facades, and stunning two-bay eyebrow dormer facing the street with shingled returns.

Hotel Mellen // 1894

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While Ashmont Hill in Dorchester is known for large, single-family Victorian houses, there are a number of grand apartment houses and three-deckers dispersed throughout the area, showing the evolution of housing in desirable neighborhoods in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This is the Hotel Mellen, located at 18-20 Mellen Street, a multi-family building that architecturally blends in with its surroundings, not like many uninspiring boxes being built all over the region today. The property was developed by Louis Pfingst, a German streetcar designer and mechanic who was also active in the local Dorchester Gentlemen’s Driving Club. The building was designed by local architect Alexander B. Pinkham, who specialized in multi-family housing designs around Boston. The rounded bays, recessed porch in the gable, varied siding, and applied ornament, make the building stand out, while fitting well within its context of surrounding homes.

Reed-Fitzgerald House // 1891

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The Reed-Fitzgerald House at 75 Ocean Street in Ashmont Hill, Dorchester, stands out as a simple, yet beautiful example of the Shingle style of architecture for residential purposes. The house here was built in 1891 from plans by Edwin J. Lewis, Jr., a Boston-born architect who worked at the office of Peabody and Stearns before he opened his own firm in 1887, specializing in suburban houses and churches. The first owner of this residence was George Reed, a Boston insurance executive. Years later, the house was owned by Henry Fitzgerald, possibly Henry S. Fitzgerald, the brother of John “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald (1863-1950), the Mayor of Boston who resided in a since demolished house in the neighborhood. Mayor John Fitzgerald was the father of Rose Fitzgerald and maternal grandfather of her sons President John F. Kennedy, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, and Senator Ted Kennedy. Recently, the owners of the Reed-Fitzgerald House have restored the exterior, and stained the shingles the lovely rust color.