Tag: lit

The Mount (1902)

by Dan//Colonial Revival, Houses, Lenox, Neoclassical

The Mount

Edith Wharton‘s first book, The Decoration of Houses (1897), written with Ogden Codman, Jr., was very influential as a guide to interior design. The work was a reaction to the Victorian style of heavily curtained and cluttered rooms, instead emphasizing the style of the harmonious and simply proportioned classical rooms of Europe. The main house of Wharton‘s country estate in the Berkshires, called the Mount and located in Lenox, was built in 1902 and displays the principles she had advocated in her book. The house, designed by Wharton with assistance from Codman, was inspired by the seventeenth century English estate, Belton House, but the Mount‘s design also drew strongly on classical Italian and French architecture. The gardens and grounds were also designed by Wharton, with the kitchen garden and drive being designed by Wharton‘s niece, Beatrix Jones Farrand.

Wharton and her husband, Edward, lived in the Mount from 1902 to 1911. The house was later used as a girls’ dormitory for the Foxhollow School, and the site of Shakespeare & Company. In the 1980s, the property was bought by Edith Wharton Restoration, which has restored the grounds and much of the house. The house was opened to the public in 2001, but in 2008 the institution, which had spent millions to acquire the surviving half of Edith Wharton’s collection of books, defaulted on loans and faced foreclosure. Please help save the Mount by visiting and spending money there! There is an online video available of Bob Villa taking a tour of the Mount. Below are some pictures and descriptions of some of the rooms at the Mount and the gardens: Continue reading “The Mount (1902)”

Arrowhead (1780)

by Dan//Colonial, Houses, Pittsfield

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Arrowhead is the house in Pittsfield where Herman Malville wrote Moby Dick and other classic works. The house was built around 1780 by Captain David Bush and operated as an inn by Bush and his son. It originally had a much higher gambrel roof, but this was later removed, resulting in a lower roofline. There is a pdf file available of the house’s National Register of Historic Places Inventory nomination form. In the early nineteenth century, the house was the home of Melville’s Uncle Thomas and the author first visited the property, with its view of Mount Greylock, in 1832. In 1850, following the lead of his friend Hawthorne, who had also settled in nearby Lenox, Melville decided to move his family to the farm and they lived there until 1863. Melville named the house Arrowhead, because many arrowheads were dug up around the property during planting season. Shortly after buying Arrowhead, Melville added a side porch, after which his story “The Piazza” is named. These were productive years for Melville as a writer. During his time at Arrowhead, he wrote Moby Dick (1851), Pierre (1852), Israel Potter (1855), The Piazza Tales (1856), and The Confidence Man (1857). His story, “I and My Chimney,” has a description of the house as it appeared when Melville lived there. Not earning a living from his writing, Melville eventually returned to New York, taking a job as a customs inspector. He sold Arrowhead to his brother Allan and it remained in the Melville family until 1927. In 1975, the house was purchased by the Berkshire County Historical Society and restored to become a museum. Continue reading “Arrowhead (1780)”

Longfellow’s Wayside Inn (1716)

by Dan//Colonial, Sudbury, Taverns

Wayside Inn

The Wayside Inn in Sudbury is the oldest operating Inn in the United States and was immortalized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow‘s sequence of poems, Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863). Built in 1716, the Inn was first known as Howe’s Tavern, for its first innkeeper, David Howe. His descendants continued to operate the Inn, adding to the original structure over time, until 1861. These included Howe’s son, Ezekiel, who led the Sudbury militia to Concord for the battle of April 19, 1775. After passing from the Howes to new owners, the Inn served as a boarding house for temporary lodgers. In October of 1862, Longfellow and his publisher, James Fields, visited the Inn and this inspired the poet to write Tales of a Wayside Inn, which became a bestseller. Although it continued to serve as a boarding house, the Wayside Inn soon began to attract tourists, anxious to see the place which had captured the public imagination. In 1896, Edward Rivers Lemon, a wealthy Medford wool merchant, purchased the Inn as a business venture, inviting the Society of Colonial Wars to meet there in 1897. On that occasion, the orator Samuel Arthur Bent gave a speech entitled: “The Wayside Inn—Its History and Literature.” Lemon intended the Inn to be a literary and artistic retreat and a group artists, poets, and writers, known as the Paint and Clay Club, met there frequently.

The Wayside Inn entered a new phase of its existence when it was purchased by Henry Ford in 1923. He intended to create a living museum of Americana centered on the historic building and bought many acres of land around it. He built a gristmill and the non-denominational Martha-Mary Chapel on the property and and also relocated a schoolhouse from Sterling, which he believed was the actual building mentioned in Sarah Josepha Hale‘s poem “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” The property was placed in a non-profit trust in 1947, with many representatives of the Ford family on the Board, and this transitioned to governance by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 1957. Restoration of the Inn was necessary, with help from the Ford family, after a devastating fire in December 1955. As of 1960, the Inn came under the governance of local trustees. There would be no further support coming from Ford interests and there was no endowment, but by this time the Inn had become self-sufficient as an inn, restaurant and museum.
Below are pictures of some interiors in the museum section of the Inn: Continue reading “Longfellow’s Wayside Inn (1716)”

20 Pinckney Street, Boston (1852)

by Dan//Boston, Federal, Houses

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The house at 20 Pinckney Street on Boston’s Beacon Hill is listed in some online sources as having been built in 1860, but it must have been built sometime before 1852, because from 1852 to 1855, it was the home of Bronson Alcott and his family. Louisa May Alcott’s room was on the house‘s third floor. While living here, Louisa’s first story was published, “The Rival Painters: a Tale of Rome” in 1852 and her first book, Flower Fables (1854). Later, after Louisa May Alcott became a successful writer, she lived in nearby Louisburg Square, looking after her father.

William Hickling Prescott House (1808)

by Dan//Boston, Federal, Houses

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William Hickling Prescott was an important nineteenth century historian who is best known for his works, History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843) and History of the Conquest of Peru (1847). The latter work was written in a house that Prescott lived in on Beacon Street in Boston from 1845 to 1859. The 1808 house (on the left in the photo above) was designed by Asher Benjamin and features Greek design motifs and a Federal style doorway. William Makepeace Thackeray, a friend of Prescott, visited the house. Thackeray was as inspired to write his novel, The Virginians (1859), after seeing two crossed swords displayed in the home, one belonging to Prescott‘s grandfather (Col. William Prescott) and one by Prescott’s wife’s father (Capt. John Linzee), each on opposing sides at the Battle of Bunker Hill. The Prescott House is now a museum and the headquarters of the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Francis Parkman House (1830)

by Dan//Boston, Federal, Houses

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Francis Parkman was one of nineteenth century America’s most noted historians. His first book, The Oregon Trail (1849), became a classic and he went on to write his multi-volume epic, France and England in North America. From 1865 until his death in 1893, Francis Parkman resided at a house at 50 Chestnut Street on Boston’s Beacon Hill. It is one of several houses built sometime in the late 1820s or 1830s by Cornelius Coolidge.

Here’s an additional photo and a list of Parkman‘s works (with links to Google Books) which, although dated in many ways, are considered to be significant literary works: Continue reading “Francis Parkman House (1830)”

Nathaniel Hawthorne Birthplace (1730)

by Dan//Colonial, Houses, Salem

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The house in which the author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, was born on July 4, 1804 and lived in until he was age 4 is located in Salem. It was originally on Union Street, but in 1958 it was moved to a site adjacent to the House of the Seven Gables, the building that would inspire Hawthorne to write the novel of the same name. The house was built between 1730 and 1745 for Joshua Pickman, a Boston mariner. It was bought by Hawthorne’s grandfather, the famous shipmaster Captain Daniel Hawthorne, in 1772. As part of the House of the Seven Gables Settlement Association property, the house is now a museum open to visitors.