Historic Buildings of Massachusetts

Nathan Appleton House (1818)

by Dan/July 2, 2009January 19, 2020/Boston, Federal, Greek Revival, Houses

The Nathan Appleton House, at 39 Beacon Street, and its partner, the Daniel Parker House, at no. 40, were designed for the two former business partners by Alexander Parris, a noted Boston architect. Built in 1818, a fourth floor was added to both houses in 1888. These two bowfront row houses which are transitional between the Federal and Greek Revival styles, at one time mirrored each other more closely, but the Appleton house had an extra window added on each of its floors. Nathan Appleton was a pioneering textile manufacturer. The marriage of the poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, to Appleton‘s daughter, Fanny, took place in the house in 1843. From 1914 into the 1990s, the building housed the Women’s City Club of Boston. In more recent times, it has been subdivided into condominiums. There is a video of the house’s exterior on YouTube.

114 Brattle Street, Cambridge (1903)

by Dan/July 1, 2009July 1, 2009/Cambridge, Colonial Revival, Houses

In addition to its well-known Colonial-era houses, Brattle Street in Cambridge also has many Colonial Revival homes, built in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A number of these were designed by John W. Ames, such as the house at 114 Brattle, which closely follows the style of eighteenth century Georgian structures.

Salem Custom House (1819)

by Dan/June 30, 2009/Federal, Public Buildings, Salem

The last in a series of 13 custom houses built in Salem since 1649, the Salem Custom House of 1819 is famous for being featured in the introduction to Nathaniel Hawthorne‘s The Scarlet Letter (1850). Hawthorne worked in the Custom House for the U.S. Custom Service as Surveyor in 1846-1849. The building housed offices and an attached warehouse, the Public Stores, which contained bonded and impounded cargo. The structure was designed in the Federal style by Perley Putnam, a Weigher and Gauger for the U.S. Custom Service. A wooden eagle, carved by Salem craftsman Joseph True, was placed atop the Custom House in 1826. It was was replaced with a fiberglass replica in 2004. The Custom House is now a part of the Salem Maritime National Historic Site.

West India Goods Store (1804)

by Dan/June 30, 2009June 30, 2009/Commercial, Salem, Vernacular

Typical of the waterfront commercial buildings of early nineteenth century Salem is the West India Goods Store on Derby Street. Now a part of the Salem Maritime National Historic Site, the Store was built sometime between 1800 and 1815, probably around 1804, by the merchant, Captain Henry Prince, Sr., when he lived in the Derby House next door. Prince probably used it as a warehouse, its first documented use as a store being in 1836. The store actually sold goods from all over the world, the term “West India Goods Store” being a generic term for a store selling international goods. The building was altered many times over the years, being moved at one point from the left of the house to the right. It was restored by the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities in 1928 and was acquired by the Park Service in 1937. Today the Store sells items similar to those it would have sold in the nineteenth century.

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.