Jeremiah Gardner was a noted house builder in Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood. Builders and housewrights would often construct a row of houses, taking one of them as their fee. Gardner built the 1809 house at 66 Mt. Vernon Street for himself. In the early twentieth century, the house was the residence of Arthur A. Shurtleff, a landscape architect. Shurtleff (who later changed his name to Shurcliff) designed such gardens as the Japanese Garden at Bellarmine Hall at Fairfield University and was also involved in urban planning.