Boston – Page 9 – Historic Buildings of Massachusetts

Somerset Club (1819)

by Dan/July 25, 2008July 2, 2009/Boston, Federal, Houses

The home of David Sears, on Beacon Street in Boston, began as a 2-story bowfront house, built in 1816-1819 and designed by Alexander Parris. The left section of the house, featuring a second bowfront, was added by Sears in 1832, and in the 1830s, the house was the most expensive in Boston. The building has been home to the exclusive Somerset Club since 1872, when the third floor was added. Today, the house gives an impression of monumentality, with its large size and granite facade.

Faneuil Hall (1742)

by Dan/July 4, 2008/Boston, Colonial, Public Buildings

Peter Faneuil was a Boston merchant whose parents were Huguenots. In 1740, he proposed donating a market building to the town, with a marketplace below and a public meeting hall above. The original Faneuil Hall, completed in 1742, was designed by the Scottish artist John Smibert. After the building suffered in a fire in 1761, it was rebuilt the following year. The building now entered the period when it would become known as “The Cradle of Liberty.” James Otis dedicated the meeting room to the “Cause of Liberty” and it was here that the many important gatherings protesting British taxes on the colonies were held, under the leadership of such patriots as Samuel Adams and John Hancock. After the Boston Tea Party, the British closed the building to public meetings and it was used to garrison soldiers.

After the Revolutionary War, Faneuil Hall was rebuilt and enlarged in 1806 by Charles Bulfinch, who retained its colonial style, but increased its width, added a third floor and enclosed the ground floor’s open market arcades. He also added galleries to the meeting hall, which, as Peter Faneuil had requested, has continued to be used for public forums. Over the years it has heard abolitionists, suffragists and political candidates. The third floor, now a museum, is the armory of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts, the oldest military organization in the United States which has had its headquarters in Faneuil Hall since 1746. Faneuil Hall also has a distinctive copper gilt Grasshopper weather vane, made by the artisan Shem Drowne. It was stolen, but found a few days later in 1974. In 1898-1899, the building was rebuilt using noncombustible materials. Faneuil Hall, together with the neighboring Quincy Market, is now part of the Faneuil Hall Marketplace. It is also on Boston’s Freedom Trail.

Old City Hall, Boston (1865)

by Dan/July 3, 2008/Boston, Public Buildings, Second Empire

Boston’s Old City Hall, constructed from 1862-1865, was built on School Street, the location, from 1704 to 1748, of the Boston Latin School, America’s first public school. Preceded by a City Hall on the same site designed by Bulfinch, the 1864 building was one of the first in America to be designed in the elaborate French Second Empire style and further helped to popularize the use of the style throughout the country. With the 1969 move to the new City Hall, the old building was adapted to serve as space for offices and a restaurant, although at the cost of some of the original impressive interiors. The preservation of Old City Hall is one of the earliest examples of the adaptive reuse of a historic structure. Old City Hall is also on the route of Boston’s Freedom Trail. See below for more pictures:

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Old State House (1713)

by Dan/June 23, 2008January 19, 2020/Boston, Colonial, Public Buildings

Since the 1630s, what would become the site of the Old State House in Boston was where the Puritans’ stocks and whipping posts were located and where the town’s earliest market was held. A wood Town House was built there in 1657, which had an open air market on the ground floor and a meeting place above. After this structure burned down in 1711, a new brick one was built in 1713, although the interior was gutted by fire in 1747 and had to be restored afterwards. This historic structure at the head of State Street, which became the seat of British Royal government in Massachusetts, was the site of many significant events: James Otis‘ speech against the writs of assistance in 1761; the March 5, 1770 Boston Massacre, which occurred just in front of the building; the first reading for Bostonians of the Declaration of Independence by Col. Thomas Crafts from the east balcony on July 18, 1776 (at which time the people torn down from the building the original royal lion and unicorn to be consigned to a bonfire); and the 1789 visit of President George Washington. After the Revolutionary War, it continued to serve as the State House until 1798, when it was given to the town in exchange for a new State House site on Beacon Hill. In 1830, it was altered by architect Isaiah Rogers in the Classical Revival style to serve as a City Hall until 1841. After that, it began a long decline. Housing offices and shops, the exterior was covered with advertisements. There were thoughts of demolishing it to widen the street and Chicagoans even offered to move it to Illinois! In 1882, it was eventually restored (with replicas of the old lion and unicorn) and rededicated as a museum, run by the Bostonian Society. A more recent restoration was completed by Goody, Clancy & Associates in 1991. The building is part of the Boston Freedom Trail. See below for more pictures of the Old State House:

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Second Harrison Gray Otis House (1802)

by Dan/June 8, 2008September 17, 2016/Boston, Federal, Houses

The only freestanding mansion on Boston’s Beacon Hill is the second of three houses designed by Charles Bulfinch for Harrison Gray Otis, a prominent businessman, lawyer and Federalist Party leader. Both Otis and Bulfinch were members of the Mount Vernon Proprietors, who purchased land on Beacon Hill for development. Bulfinch created an even more elegant mansion for Otis on Mount Vernon Street than the one he had created earlier, on Cambridge Street in 1796. Constructed between 1800 and 1802, Bulfinch hoped that the freestanding home on a landscaped property with outbuildings in back would be a model for the rest of Beacon Hill, but the neighborhood would end up being much more densely developed. Otis sold the house in 1806, only a few years after it was built: his growing family would require an even larger home, also to be designed by Bulfinch. Many people have owned the Second Harrison Gray Otis House over the years and undertaken various renovations and remodelings.

Hollis H. Hunnewell House (1869)

by Dan/June 8, 2008September 17, 2016/Boston, Houses, Second Empire

The Hollis H. Hunnewell House, on Dartmouth Street in Boston’s Back Bay, was built in 1869-1870. It was designed by Sturgis and Brigham for Hollis Horatio Hunnewell, son of Horatio Hollis Hunnewell, a wealthy financier, horticulturalist, and great benefactor of the town and college of Wellesley. Sturgis and Brigham designed the house with some of Boston’s earliest ceramic ornamentation on a building’s exterior. The mansard roofs atop the mansion’s irregularly sized towers, as well as a new one-story wing, were added to the building after a fire in 1881. In the early twentieth century, the house was owned by T. Jefferson Coolidge.

55-57 Mount Vernon Street, Boston (1804)

by Dan/May 6, 2008March 23, 2009/Boston, Federal, Greek Revival, Houses

Left: 59 Mt. Vernon St.; Center: 57 Mt. Vernon St.;
Right: Nichols House Museum (55 Mt. Vernon St.);

Jonathan Mason, one of the Mount Vernon Proprietors (the group of real estate speculators who developed Boston’s Beacon Hill), commissioned the architect Charles Bulfinch to design a row of four houses (51-57 Mt. Vernon St.) for his daughters. Originally constructed in 1804, Nos. 55 & 57 both had side entrances on their west elevations, facing Mason’s mansion, which is no longer standing. In 1837, No. 59 (designed by Edward Shaw) was built to the west, blocking the entrance to No. 57, which was consequently moved to its current location on the front facade, facing Mt. Vernon St. Nos. 55-57 have had some notable residents.

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