Houses – Page 63 – Historic Buildings of Massachusetts

Elias Hasket Derby House (1762)

by Dan/June 30, 2009September 17, 2016/Colonial, Houses, Salem

The Salem house of Elias Hasket Derby was built in 1762 and is the oldest surviving brick house in Salem. It was built by Richard Derby for his son on the occasion of Elias Hasket’s marriage to Elizabeth Crowninshield. Richard Derby had made his money through fishing and trade enterprises. During the Revolutionary War, Hasket converted many of the family’s cargo ships into privateers which preyed on British shipping. Wealth amassed from these activities later funded Derby’s involvement with the East India trade, which would make him America’s first millionaire. The house was sold in 1796 to another successful merchant, Captain Henry Prince, Sr., who built the West India Goods Store next to the house around 1800. After the Prince family left the home in 1827, it had other owners and was used as a tenement house for a time. In the early twentieth century, it was purchased and restored by the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities and in 1937 was transferred to become part of the Salem Maritime National Historic Site.

51 Chestnut Street, Boston (1830)

by Dan/June 29, 2009June 29, 2009/Boston, Federal, Houses

The house at 51 Chestnut Street, on Boston’s Beacon Hill, was built in 1830. It was the home of Rev. Charles Lowell, who was the pastor of West Church in Boston from 1806 to 1861. Rev. Lowell, who was the father of the poet, James Russell Lowell and grandfather of the Civil War General Charles Russell Lowell, later acquired and moved to Elmwood, a Georgian-style house in Cambridge.

Ames-Webster House (1872)

by Dan/June 29, 2009September 17, 2016/Boston, Houses, Queen Anne

The 1872 Mansard-roofed house of industrialist and congressman Frederick L. Ames, originally designed by Peabody and Stearns and located at the intersection of Dartmouth Street and Commonwealth Avenue, in Boston’s Back Bay, was significantly enlarged in 1882 by the architect, John Hubbard Sturgis. Sturgis had earlier designed the Gothic Revival-style Museum of Fine Arts building of 1876 and in the Ames House he worked in the English Queen Anne style. The expanded Ames Mansion, which was occupied for 90 years by the Ames and Webster families, features a two-level conservatory, large tower and chimney and porte-cochere. The interior is lavish, with stained glass by John La Farge and murals by Benjamin Constant. In 1972, the house was converted to serve as offices, a notable example of adaptive reuse.

J.P. Putnam House (1878)

by Dan/April 6, 2009September 17, 2016/Boston, Houses, Queen Anne

The Boston architect, J. Pickering Putnam, designed his own house, built in 1878 at the intersection of Newbury and Dartmouth Streets in Boston. With many references to Medieval architecture, this complex Queen Anne-style house features multiple towers and gables. The building now houses a restaurant.

Benjamin Hawkes House (1801)

by Dan/April 5, 2009September 17, 2016/Federal, Houses, Salem

The Benjamin Hawkes House is located off Derby Street in Salem, between the Custom House and the Richard Derby House. The house was originally planned by Samuel McIntire as a home for Elias Hasket Derby in 1780, but was then abandoned in 1782, when Derby moved to a house near the center of town. Left unfinished for almost twenty years, in 1801 it was acquired by the shipbuilder, Benjamin Hawkes, who reduced the building’s size and altered it to accommodate two families. Today the Federal-style building is used as administrative offices by the Park Service for the Salem Maritime National Historic Site.

Annie Longfellow Thorp House (1887)

by Dan/April 4, 2009September 17, 2016/Cambridge, Colonial Revival, Houses

At 115 Brattle Street in Cambridge is a Colonial Revival style house built in 1887 for Annie Allegra Longfellow Thorp, a daughter of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Inspired by her father’s eighteenth century Georgian house nearby, the daughter’s home was designed by her cousin, Alexander Wadsworth Longfellow, Jr. Having worked in the office of H.H. Richardson, A.W. Longfellow started his own firm and was known for his Romanesque and Colonial Revival designs.

77 Mount Vernon Street, Boston (1837)

by Dan/March 27, 2009/Boston, Greek Revival, Houses

No. 77 Mount Vernon Street in Boston is part of a row of Greek Revival Houses constructed in 1836-1837 on the site of the former Bulfinch-designed mansion of Jonathan Mason. These buildings are set back 30 feet from the street, in line with other earlier houses in this block. It later nineteenth century, the house at no. 77 was the home of Sarah Wyman Whitman, an artist and graphic designer who created book bindings for Houghton Mifflin. Whitman‘s work appeared on books by such authors as Sarah Orne Jewett, Celia Thaxter, Lafcadio Hearn and many others. In 1936, the house became the headquarters of the Club of Odd Volumes, a society of bibliophiles founded in 1887. The club had previously rented space in a large building across the street.