Month: November 2010

Lafayette House (1731)

by Dan//Colonial, Houses, Marblehead

At a spot in Marblehead where five streets intersect is the c. 1731 “Lafayette House.” It acquired this name due to an often-told story that when General Lafayette visited Marblehead in 1824, his carriage was too large to pass by the house and so the corner of the building on the first floor was removed. The story is considered unlikely by modern historians and there are other possible explanations for why the house is missing a corner. One possibility is that it was done to allow large coal wagons to pass by. Another is that it was constructed that way for a retail shop entrance. Yet another idea is that it was to allow the flow of draining water and sewage. The house is also notable as being the home of Jeremiah Lee and his family from 1751 to 1768. before he built his later mansion in Marblehead.

Payson-Fettyplace House (1845)

by Dan//Greek Revival, Houses, Salem

The Payson-Fettyplace House, at 16 Winter Street in Salem, was built around 1845 for Edward H. Payson. In a book published in 1886, it’s explained that Payson, “at the age of eighty, is still cashier of the First National (formerly the Commercial) Bank, to which office he was elected in 1826.” From 1850 to 1911, the house was home to the Fettyplace family. The house is now a Bed & breakfast named the Amelia Payson House in honor of Edward’s wife.

Captain Charles Leonard House (1805)

by Dan//Agawam, Federal, Houses, Taverns

The Captain Charles Leonard House, at 663 Main Street in Agawam, was built in 1805 and is attributed as the work of Asher Benjamin. A Harvard graduate, farmer and militia captain, Charles Leonard built the house to serve as a tavern. It had many owners over the years and had become a multifamily rental property by the early twentieth century. The house was purchased and restored by prominent Agawam citizen Mrs. Minerva Davis, who made it Agawam’s Community House. Today, the house can be rented for events.

Nathan P. Gifford House (1893)

by Dan//Colonial Revival, Houses, Salem

In 1892-1893, when lumber dealer Nathan P. Gifford constructed his Colonial Revival home at 377 Essex Street in Salem, he incorporated an earlier house on the site, which had been built by James Ford in 1764. The house is also referred to as the Ford-Emerson-Ives-Gifford House, because it had been occupied, earlier in the nineteenth century, by Rev. Brown Emerson, pastor of South Church, and David P. Ives. The Ford-Emerson-Ives-Gifford House served as the residence and office for a succession of doctors in the twentieth century and was recently converted into three large apartments.

Crowninshield-Bentley House (1727)

by Dan//Colonial, Houses, Salem

The Crowninshield-Bentley House was built in 1727 to 1730 on Essex Street in Salem. Four generations of Crowninshields lived in the house, until 1832, beginning with merchant and sea captain John Crowninshield. The building may have begun as a half-house (the east half of the house) and was enlarged by 1761, when John Crowninshield died and his widow Hannah and son Benjamin divided the property. Benjamin added a new addition in 1794, while his mother rented her half of the house out to boarders. The house is also named for Reverend William Bentley, who boarded here from 1791 to 1819, while he was pastor of East Church. Bentley was a Unitarian minister and scholar, famous for his diary. The house was sold to the Hawthorne Hotel in the 1940s and in 1959 the Hotel donated it to the Essex institute. The house‘s modern additions were then removed and it was moved to the grounds of the Essex Institute, where it was restored as a memorial to the wealthy preservationist Louise DuPont Crowninshield. The house, which is a house museum owned by the Peabody Essex Museum, has recently had an extensive restoration.