Architecture - The Cambridge Historical Commission Blog

Cambridge Designers: John Muldoon

Posted on August 23, 2023October 11, 2023 by cambridgehistoricalcommission

^{John Muldoon, undated photograph. Image courtesy of Tracy (Halliday) Reusch.}

John E. Muldoon, a furniture designer and self-taught architect, was born in East Cambridge in November 1864, the first child of William H. and Catherine (McKeever) Muldoon. William had been born in the neighborhood in 1840. When the Civil War began in 1861, the 21-year-old enlisted as a private in the U.S. Army; in 1864, during the long Siege of Petersburg, Virginia, William suffered a severe wound to his left arm, which was so damaged it had to be amputated. He was mustered out that same year and returned to Cambridge; he was home when John was born. The family lived on Fifth Street in East Cambridge; John’s only sister, Sarah, was born in 1866, his brother Samuel in 1872, and his youngest brother, William, in 1888. William the father worked at the nearby New England Glass Company, and later opened a tavern, “The Cosmopolitan,” on Cambridge Street, and even became a teacher. He died in 1898.

_{Advertisement for William Muldoon’s tavern, ‘The Cosmopolitan’, Cambridge Chronicle, July 1884.}

John Muldoon attended local public schools and was apprenticed as a carpenter while a young man. In 1887, he married Margaret A. Fay; the next year, they welcomed a son, called Willie. John began work as a furniture designer for the esteemed firm of Irving & Casson and could walk to work from his home, a double house he rented with his parents on Fifth Street.

^{Example design by Irving and Casson – A. H. Davenport — Historic New England Collections. Flower Box of Mahogany c.1900.}

John was hired by his landlord to design and oversee construction of a new double-house to replace the existing building there. This would be John’s first known foray into the architecture field. The double house at 41-43 Fifth Street was built with modest proportions but exhibits more detail than many surrounding tenements of the time. Today many of the building’s Classically inspired elements are covered in vinyl siding, yet Muldoon’s affection for Classical design is still apparent in the original pilasters in the Ionic style that frame the two entrances under deeply overhanging eaves. An image from the 1960s (below) shows the original pilaster detailing at the bay windows with swags in the entablatures. He and his young family would occupy one unit with his mother and father living in another unit. This first known building commission for John Muldoon would set off a short, yet significant career as an architectural designer in Cambridge.

^{Muldoon family home, 41-43 Fifth Street. Before covered with vinyl siding. CHC Staff photograph 1965.}

In 1892 John Muldoon, with no architectural training or academic degree, submitted the lowest bid for a new firehouse in East Cambridge and was awarded the contract. The brick structure, described in newspapers as being in the “Doric style,” was built on the corner of Otis and Third streets across from the Middlesex County Courthouse. The station, with its 85-foot hose drying tower, space to accommodate six horses, and (ironically) a smoking room for the firefighters, stood for just three years: in 1895 it and the rest of the block bounded by Cambridge, Otis, Second, and Third streets were razed to make way for the new Middlesex County Registry of Deeds.

^{“New” Ward 3 Fire Station designed by John Muldoon in 1892. It was demolished less than three years later. Cambridge Chronicle, May 7, 1892.}

Muldoon was then hired by the City to design another fire station just a few blocks away at the corner of Gore and Third streets. Architecturally, the second station shares many similarities with the earlier building with a stronger emphasis on Colonial Revival design with bold pilasters and pediment. Historically, the building also exhibited a Palladian window on the second floor. The former station stands today as a noteworthy institutional project in Muldoon’s early architectural career and is likely to have gained him important future commissions in Cambridge, despite his lack of professional credentials.

Engine 3, 29 Third Street, as completed. City of Cambridge Annual Report, 1896.

Muldoon’s first major project outside East Cambridge came in 1894 when a young couple James and Mary Heffernan hired him to design a large residence at the corner of Cambridge Street and Highland Avenue. The dwelling, while clearly Colonial Revival in its detailing, features a more traditional Queen Anne corner tower capped with a conical roof. Its prominent site and handsome design may have helped Muldoon attract the attention of affluent Mid and West Cambridge residents, who might otherwise have overlooked the work of a furniture designer from modest East Cambridge. Upper- and middle-class residents took notice of Muldoon’s high-quality designs, which were as good as those of major architectural firms—and cost a lot less.

^{Heffernan Residence, 81 Highland Avenue.}

In 1895 while overseeing the construction of the second fire station, Muldoon was hired by Jeremiah W. Coveney, a former undertaker, Cambridge City Councillor, and State Senator, to design a dignified single-family home at the corner of Otis and Sixth streets. The design stood out in East Cambridge: a single-family detached house was a rarity in the dense neighborhood of tenements and rowhouses as were houses in the Colonial Revival style. The symmetrical design features two-story rounded bays flanking the central entry portico with a Palladian window above. Alterations in 1992, when the building was used as a funeral home, obscured some of the original detailing, but the Colonial Revival motifs largely remain intact.

Jeremiah Coveney House, 140 Otis Street, before renovations (1967).

From 1895, John suffered a series of personal tragedies which put most of his projects on hold. In 1895 John and Margaret’s only child, Willie, died of diphtheria at age six. A year later, Margaret died while in Saratoga Springs, New York. After their deaths, John accepted a few small jobs in East Cambridge such as alterations to a neighbor’s house on Fifth Street, two renovations on Otis Street, and designing a stable on Gore Street (since demolished). In 1898 John lost his father.

During these somber years, John met Ellen Frances O’Connell (1875-1920), a first-generation Irish immigrant who lived with her father and mother in East Cambridge. Her father, John Patrick O’Connell, was for years the advertising agent for the Sacred Heart Review, a prominent Catholic publication that was active from 1888 to 1918. John and Ellen married in 1900 and would have six children together: five daughters (Helen, Catherine, Mary, Sarah, and Betty) and one son, John E. Muldoon, Jr.

The year before the marriage, Thomas J. Casey, the Chief of the Cambridge Fire Department, commissioned John to design a residence for his family on Lexington Avenue. The Casey’s stately, Colonial Revival double-house, a stone’s throw from the recently built Engine 9 Fire Station (1896), which was not designed by Muldoon. The Casey Residence exhibits Muldoon’s exceptional understanding on Colonial-inspired design with its rounded bays, a columned portico, and intricate trim detailing on the façade and dormers. Inside, five types of wood were laid as flooring in distinct patterns and colors.

Chief Thomas Casey House, 166-168 Lexington Avenue.

John’s craftsmanship (and low costs) impressed developers in Mid-Cambridge, who commissioned him to design multiple properties in the neighborhood. In 1901 he designed three adjacent double-houses at 27-29, 31-33, and 35-37 Highland Avenue for the owner-developer John Elston. The three unique residences are an eclectic blend of Queen Anne and Colonial Revival influences and today are in varied states of preservation. Elston also hired Muldoon that year to design a duplex at 14-16 Ellsworth Park, a short dead-end street.

During his career designing buildings all over Cambridge, John remained employed as a designer at Irving & Casson. Though he split his time between roles as architect and designer, his employers at Irving & Casson must have given him their blessing; as in 1903, John was hired by them to plan and design a four-story, four-bay addition to the company’s plant, that would be modest in size and located in the central corridor screened from Otis and Thorndike streets.

^{Irving & Casson Factory with Muldoon-designed addition from 1903 highlighted.}

John Muldoon’s last known project in Cambridge was the two-family house he designed for himself and his family. In 1909 he purchased a house lot on Lexington Avenue from the heirs of his former client, Fire Chief Thomas J. Casey and erected the grand Colonial Revival style structure one sees today. The two-family house boasts a large, gambrel roof with its gable end facing the street, elaborate columned porticos surmounted by balustrades topped with urns, and bold corner quoins.

^{John Muldoon House (1909), 146-148 Lexington Avenue.}

John Muldoon’s legacy in Cambridge cannot be overstated. He progressed from carpenter’s apprentice and furniture designer to a twenty-year career designing houses and buildings in Cambridge. Some of the city’s best examples of Colonial Revival-style houses were designed and built by Muldoon, the self-taught architect.

While he seemingly retired from the architecture profession following the completion of his own home on Lexington Avenue, he remained employed at Irving & Casson until his death in 1937. He was 72 years old.

^{Muldoon House (center left) and neighboring Chief Casey House (right) on Lexington Avenue.}

Click here to see other features in our Cambridge Designers series.

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Cambridge Designers: F. Frederick Bruck & Phoebe Mason Bruck

Posted on January 30, 2023February 2, 2023 by ehillchc

F. Frederick Bruck

Ferdinand Friedrich (Frederick) Adrian Bruck was born on January 24, 1921, in Breslau, Germany (present-day Wroclaw, Poland) the son of Eberhard Ferdinand Bruck and Irmgard Jentzsch Bruck. At the age of 15, Ferdinand left Germany for England and enrolled at the Bootham School in York, England. As they had means to do so, Bruck’s family fled Germany due to the growing antisemitic ideology seen there. Ferdinand Bruck was listed as “Hebrew” in his immigration documents, and his father fled Germany as a “refugee scholar”, the latter finding work elsewhere in Europe and eventually landing in the United States accepting a teaching position at Harvard.

_{Bruck in his Harvard Freshman Yearbook, 1937.}

In 1937, Ferdinand Bruck arrived in Cambridge to attend Harvard University, his freshman dorm room was in Matthews Hall in Harvard Yard. His education was interrupted by World War II when he was drafted. Before leaving for the War, he and his girlfriend attended the Cocoanut Grove Nightclub in Boston, the night where the infamous fire occurred, which claimed the lives of 490 people. Bruck helped people escape from the blaze. He was hospitalized as a result of the fire and ensuing panic, and his departure for war was delayed. From the hospital, Bruck applied to the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) and was accepted.

_{Aftermath of Cocoanut Grove fire, Boston, November 1942. Boston Public Library collections.}

He attended GSD during the spring and summer of 1942 but had to leave soon after for the war. He served in the US Army’s Military Intelligence Service unit back in his home country of Germany. Mr. Bruck spent the end of 1942-1945 overseas. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1943 while serving.

_{Draft registration card for Ferdinand Friedrich Adrian Bruck. Ancestry.com}

After the war, Mr. Bruck completed his time at GSD, where he learned Modernist design under Walter Gropius, a fellow German architect. During the summers, he apprenticed at the engineering firm of Stone & Webster, a major electrical engineering firm, designing power plants, dams, and other such structures along with the other estimated 800 fellow draughtsman at the company. Bruck would state in a later interview that it was not a good experience, but he learned something.

_{Ferdinand F. Bruck’s senior picture in Harvard yearbook.}

After graduating from Harvard GSD, Bruck taught at the school part-time as an Associate Professor, a position he held from 1952-1963. Concurrently, he was hired by The Architects Collaborative under former professor Walter Gropius and assisted on designs with the firm as well as accepting independent commissions under his company, F. Frederick Bruck, Architect and Associates.

After his time at Harvard, Bruck was awarded the coveted Wheelwright Traveling Fellowship in 1954 and had the opportunity to travel the world, studying Modern architecture. Upon his return to the United States, Mr. Bruck married Phoebe Ann Mason (more on her later) and the couple purchased and moved into a new home at 77 Walker Street in Cambridge, a modest Queen Anne Victorian house built in 1885. Bruck’s Modernist sensibilities were toned down for his personal updates to his residence with a simple one-story porch and entry, new windows at the sides and rear, and a renovated interior. The exterior was largely maintained which likely made the neighbors happy at the time!

_{77 Walker Street, the home to Fred and Phoebe Bruck until the 1970s.}

In 1959, Bruck received possibly his first commission in Cambridge by Peter Knapp, a psychiatrist at 77 Raymond Street, who sought an addition where he could hold meetings with clients. The house which was sited at the rear of the lot was reconstructed from an existing stable in 1938 on its existing site in the Colonial Revival style. F. Frederick Bruck envisioned an elongated Miesian-style one-story wing which would project off the side of the 1938 home. The glass addition and solid fence would create a private, inner courtyard which was landscaped to provide a feeling of solace and serenity to his patients when they visited the home. A meandering path was added to connect the driveway and detached garage to the house at the rear of the lot. Bruck was also commissioned to construct a new addition at the rear of the existing garage for Knapp’s wife’s art studio and storage space. The overall composition is not visible from the street.

_{Drawing by F. Frederick Bruck of “Knapp House Addition”, (1960) 77 Raymond Street. Cambridge ISD Plans.}

Fred Bruck’s first major new construction project in Cambridge is a project that almost never was. When renovating a 1922 house on Gray Gardens East, the owners were heartbroken to learn a fire reduced their home down to the foundation. The owners, Harvard Professor I. Bernard Cohen and Frances Davis Cohen retained Bruck in 1962 to design them a new house. In rebuilding, Fred Bruck used the same foundation from the original house, but more vertical in a townhouse form. A requirement by the owners was for large expanses of side walls without windows to give the Cohens the space they needed for paintings and Professor Cohen’s large library, which was located on the top floor overlooking mature trees. A special design feature of the house in the front hall with its arched entrance, a nod to the Federal Revival fan light transoms, and on the inside, an 18-foot-high ceiling. The façade is dominated by an exterior chimney, further accentuating the verticality of the design.

_{22 Gray Gardens East, CHC Staff photograph.}

_{22 Gray Gardens East front elevation drawing (1962)}

About the same time Bruck designed the Cohen House, he was engaged in one of the largest design competitions in the country, the Boston City Hall competition. In October 1961, Mayor John Collins announced that the City of Boston would select the design for its new City Hall through an open, nationwide design competition. By the deadline, over 200 submissions were received, and eight finalists were selected, including one from the team of F. Frederick Bruck and Ervin Y. Galantay (a visiting architecture professor at Harvard GSD at the time). The duo’s design was a large, square building elevated on columns, with an expansive plaza surrounding. The building was on an elevated plaza which was connected to the larger open space by a bridge leading to a circular reflecting pool. The design was ultimately not chosen by the panel, who instead selected the design by the young team of Kallmann McKinnell & Knowles.

_{Proposed architectural model for Boston City Hall designed by “F Frederick Bruck and Ervin Y Galanty” (1962). Courtesy of Boston City Archives.}

Within a year after he lost the design competition for Boston City Hall, Fred Bruck was commissioned by Alan and Claire Steinert to design them a new residence in the Reservoir Hill area of West Cambridge. Alan Steinert of the Steinert Piano family and his wife Claire were in their sixties and when they purchased the former Charles C. Little House on Highland Street, they decided it was too large and dated for their tastes. It was demolished and Fred Bruck was hired to design a one-story Modern house to accommodate the aging couple, their art collection, and allow for social gatherings. The couple insisted on having the latest technologies, including central air-conditioning, radiant heating, and low voltage lighting to highlight their artworks. The design was featured in Architectural Record’s annual Record Houses, highlighting the best residential project designs of the past year. Describing the construction of the house, Frederick Bruck said “the house is wood frame with dark brick veneer. Brick was chosen to blend with the substantial character of the surrounding houses, to reduce maintenance, and because it is a material which could meet the sloping terrain. Wood frame was chosen for economy and to facilitate construction during the winter months.” The building remains one of the best examples of 1960s residential designs in Cambridge.

F. Frederick Bruck and his wife Phoebe moved from their Walker Street home to Coolidge Hill Road in the mid-1970s, modernizing a 1920s brick Colonial Revival house for their retirement. Other projects by Fred Bruck include the 1966 Bullfinch Office Center (remodeled in the late 1980s in the Post-Modern style by Graham Gund), the 1970 Charlestown Fire Station, and dozens of private residences all over New England. Fred Bruck died on May 14, 1997 and is buried at Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge.

Phoebe A. Mason Bruck

Phoebe Ann Mason was born in Highland Park, Illinois on November 26, 1928, the daughter of George Allen Mason and Louise Townsend Barnard. After attending Bard College from 1946 to 1949, she studied architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology’s (IIT) Institute of Design, which was founded as the New Bauhaus. There, Phoebe was introduced to Modern architecture and design, which would impact her taste and career for decades to come. She graduated from IIT in 1954.

_{Undated photo of Phoebe Ann Mason Bruck, Cambridge Chronicle 2004.}

While in Illinois, Phoebe worked as a designer at Baldwin Kingree, a women-owned Modern design store established in 1947 in Chicago. Baldwin Kingree was founded by Kitty Baldwin Weese (wife of Modernist architect Harry Weese) and Jody Kingree. The store specialized in Scandinavian Modern furnishings to fill American homes with affordable, architect-designed furniture and objects. While in Chicago working at Baldwin-Kingree, Phoebe was spotted by Ben Thompson of The Architects Collaborative, who convinced her to move to Cambridge to serve as head of the design department for his new store.

In Cambridge, Phoebe worked as Head of the Design Department at Design Research, Inc., a home furnishing store in an old, mansard-roofed house on Brattle Street. In her capacity as head designer for Design Research, Phoebe worked often with The Architects Collaborative (TAC) and Sert, Jackson Associates Inc., on many of their projects providing designs and furnishings for interior spaces. While working with Design Research and TAC, Phoebe met F. Frederick Bruck, and they married in 1956. Phoebe, like many women in the design profession at the time, likely consulted and worked on dozens of projects where she is not credited, it is unclear as to how many projects Phoebe was involved with during her time at TAC or Sert, Jackson, Associates.

_{Original Design Research Harvard Square store, c.1968. CHC Collections.}

_{Design Research, Inc. new Cambridge store, 48 Brattle Street, c.1972. UVA: Richard Guy Wilson Architecture Archive.}

Early in their marriage, Phoebe earned a master’s degree in Landscape Architecture from Harvard University in 1963, and would join forces professionally with her life partner, Fred Bruck at his firm F. Frederick Bruck Architect and Associates, Inc. At the firm, Phoebe wore many hats consulting on furnishings and interiors for her husband’s projects as well as developing landscape plans and designs complimentary to Mr. Bruck’s Modern designs.

In 1968, Phoebe stumbled upon an advertisement in the Boston Globe, which marketed land in New Hampshire, suitable for a vacation retreat. The ad read, “…Strafford. 48 acres. Mountain top, excellent view. You can see for miles. Small log cabin. Timber cut off.” Phoebe and Fred Bruck travelled up to New Hampshire to find a formerly wooded lot littered with tree stumps, trees lying on top of each other, piles of empty fuel cans and exposed ledges scarred by logging operations. They had already purchased the lot and Phoebe began planning her regeneration of the devastated lot. By 1969, conditions were favorable for burning and much of the site was cleansed with a controlled fire to help restore the soil and forest. Within a year, low bush blueberries, aspen, young maples, birch, and oak trees began to sprout from the charred soil. Fred Bruck converted a former two-room (350 sq. ft.) log cabin into their summer house with decks and a detached out-house for rustic living when visiting their New Hampshire property. Phoebe restored the forest and developed natural gardens scattered throughout the property. The restoration of the forest here was featured in Landscape Architecture Magazine. Phoebe ended the article by writing:

“Ten years after logging, piles of rotting slash still remain in the far corners and along the edges of the property, a vivid reminder of the devastation and seeming destruction which once pervaded the entire site. The green tidal wave of vigorous young pines, birches, oaks and maples, which threatens the engulf the woodlot gives new meaning to the concept of regeneration, for the land as well for its owners.”

_{Landscape Architecture Magazine: Vol. 69, No. 2 (March 1979).}

Phoebe was very busy in Cambridge architecture and landscape circles. She worked as a design critic for the Department of Landscape Architecture at Harvard GSD concurrently with her serving as a judge for the New England Flower Show from 1971-1979. She also served on various boards and committees including the Harvard Square Association, the Harvard Square Advisory Committee, the Quincy Square Design Committee, and served as President of the Boston Society of Landscape Architects (BSLA) from 1973-1975.

Phoebe was a force in her role as President of the Harvard Square Defense Fund and as chair of the Harvard Square Advisory Committee, where she pushed on architects, developers, and the City of Cambridge, advocating for high-quality design that maintained the character of the square. Phoebe was always firm in her positions and was very active in city life in Cambridge until she passed away in 2004. She was buried next to her partner, Fred, on Azalea Path in Mount Auburn Cemetery.

_{Grave memorial for Fred and Phoebe Bruck. Courtesy of Mt. Auburn Cemetery.}

Cambridge Designers: R. Clipston Sturgis

Posted on December 30, 2022December 30, 2022 by cambridgehistoricalcommission

In part two of our Cambridge Designers series, we are highlighting a Boston-born architect who had a lasting impact on architecture and the arts in the Boston area, R. Clipston Sturgis (1860-1951).

R. (Richard) Clipston Sturgis was born in Boston on Christmas Eve in 1860, the son of Russell and Susan Codman Welles Sturgis. As he was born into a wealthy family, Richard was schooled at the prestigious George Washington Copp Noble School (now known as the Noble and Greenough School) in Boston and at St. Paul’s in Concord, New Hampshire to prepare for college. He entered Harvard University in 1877, graduating in 1881 with a degree in architecture.

*1881 Harvard Class photo of R. Clipston Sturgis. Courtesy of Harvard University Archives.*

From 1881 to 1883 to worked in the office of his uncle, John Hubbard Sturgis (1834-1888), a partner in the firm Sturgis & Brigham, the designers of the original Museum of Fine Arts building in Boston and the Arthur Astor Carey house on Fayerweather Street in Cambridge. The Carey House in Cambridge was one of the earliest and high-style examples of Colonial Revival architecture in the region. It was during this time at his uncle’s firm that R. C. Sturgis married Esther Mary Ogden of Troy, New York in 1882.

The young couple then sailed to England, where Sturgis worked until late 1884 for London architect Robert William Edis, who worked on an extension to Sandringham House in Norfolk, England, one of the royal residences of King Charles III. It was during this period that Richard and Esther had their first child, Richard Clipston Sturgis, Jr. in Canterbury, England in March of 1884. Sturgis Jr. (1884-1913), closely followed in his father’s footsteps, attending the same schools and majoring in architecture at Harvard. Tragically, he died at 30 years old, possibly due to life-long illness as the family had a live-in nurse at their home in Boston. They had two other children, George Ogden Sturgis (1889), who died in infancy, and Dorothy Mary (Sturgis) Harding (1891-1978).

^{Richard Clipston Sturgis with newborn son Richard Clipston Sturgis, Jr. c.1884. Photo courtesy of F.S. Watt, Ancestry.com}

^{Esther Mary Ogden Sturgis and son Richard Clipston Sturgis, Jr.
c.1890, courtesy of F.S. Watt, Ancestry.com}

After leaving Edis’ employ, Sturgis spent two years touring Europe, studying and sketching in France, Italy, Germany and Holland until he returned to the United States in September 1886, when he took charge of his uncle’s firm after the partnership between Sturgis and Brigham dissolved. His uncle, John Hubbard Sturgis retired in May of 1887 and died in February of 1888.

The project that perhaps launched the career of ‘Young Clip’ was the Church of the Advent in Beacon Hill. While working with his uncle, he assisted in the design and took over the project when his uncle died. He is credited with overseeing the completion of the project, designing the spire, lectern and the west porch. After his uncle’s death, Clip partnered with William Robinson Cabot forming Sturgis & Cabot from 1888 to 1893. From 1902 to 1907 Sturgis practiced with George E. Barton as Sturgis & Barton. From 1907 until his retirement in 1932 he practiced independently.

Church of the Advent, Beacon Hill, Boston. The project that helped start R. Clipston Sturgis’ career in the United States.

Clip’s career really took off in the first two decades of the twentieth century. In 1900, he was commissioned by John A. Little, the owner of two large private dormitories for Harvard students in Harvard Square to furnish designs for a new athletic building for his properties. The cramped site on Holyoke Street, just steps from Harvard Yard, featured a large tree at the middle, which Sturgis hoped to incorporate into his design. The Big Tree Swimming Pool as designed by Sturgis, was an excellent example of Collegiate Gothic architecture in the English tradition, typical for his work. The U-shaped brick building was sited around the preserved tree and also included two squash courts with limited windows for the interior programming. The building was razed in 1962 for the Holyoke Center.

Big Tree Swimming Pool. Brick Builder (1901)

Sturgis’ only residential project in Cambridge was during his partnership with George Barton. The firm was hired by James D. Prindle, who sought to develop the lot at the corner of Bates and Raymond streets. Sturgis and Barton designed a three-unit row that turns the corner lot. The 2 1/2-story homes are Queen Anne/Tudor in style and constructed of brick on the first floor and shingle siding above. The buildings were constructed in 1905.

In 1902, Sturgis was appointed by the Mayor of Boston to the newly established Boston Schoolhouse Commission, a three-person independent board that would oversee the process of building schools for the City of Boston including the hiring of architects and shaping of the plans. From this expertise, Sturgis was called in to various cities all over the region to share how municipalities can provide high-quality and cost-effective new school buildings. In 1909, Sturgis spoke before the Cambridge Public School Association on this matter, explaining how that Boston commission set design standards and a standard cost structure for new buildings as to keep projects from ballooning in value. Sturgis would also serve as a consultant as the designated architect for the Museum of Fine Arts, providing a study and recommendations on the new building in the Fenway.

_{The Cambridge Chronicle, 23 October 1909}

Sturgis was highly influential in school building construction and design in the Boston area (Cambridge included) and always advocated for English-inspired design, a personal favorite of his as he was an anglophile. He specialized in large civic buildings including schools, but also designed clubhouses, stately manors, banks, and churches. Early school buildings designed by Sturgis include the Winsor School in Boston (1908) and designing the new Perkins School for the Blind campus in Watertown in the Neo-Gothic and Colonial Revival styles. A few years after he oversaw the design and construction of the Perkins School campus, the institution hired him again to design the Woolson House Shop building (1914) on Inman Street in Cambridge. The brick building was constructed at the rear of the Woolson House at 277 Harvard Street and served as a workshop for blind women to learn a trade and sell their creations to the public. The modest Colonial Revival building was cost-effective and provided three floors of workspaces inside.

Woolson House, 48 Inman Street, Cambridge. CHC photograph, 2022.

The same year he was commissioned to design the Woolson House on Inman Street, Clip was hired to design a new clubhouse for the Delta Upsilon Fraternity at Harvard, on Harvard Street, a short walk to campus. Sturgis designed the Colonial Revival style building elevated on the site, reusing the existing topography and adding a new stone retaining wall. Inside, the main feature was the hall, somewhat like an English college hall, which extended two stories high opening on the east to a lounge and to the west as a dining room. Above was the library with an opening looking down to the great hall and modest chambers for graduate members visiting. The building was purchased by the Cambridge Lodge of Elks in 1943 and is now home to the Ikeda Center, a non-profit whose mission is to “build cultures of peace through learning and dialogue“.

396 Harvard Street, Cambridge. Former D.U. Clubhouse.

Early sketches of D.U. Club. Richard Clipston Sturgis Special Collection of sketchbooks and notebooks, Boston Athenaeum.

Besides his career as an architect, Clip was involved in many social and professional organizations. Sturgis maintained a strong interest in promoting the arts and in serving community endeavors in the Boston area. In his early years, he was president of the Draughtsmen’s Club, later known as the Boston Architectural Club (now the Boston Architectural College). He was on the organizing committee for the Society of Arts and Crafts Boston and served as its president from 1917 to 1920.
He was a member of the Tavern Club for more than 60 years and a Fellow of the Academy of Arts and Sciences. He also was a member of the Harvard Clubs of Boston and New York, the Union Boat Club, the Colonial Society, and more. Most notably, he as President of the Boston Society of Architects and as President of the American Institute of Architects for the years 1914-15.

Sturgis was also a prolific writer and critic. He gave many speeches on architecture and planning and wrote articles that appeared in various publications. He was a popular advocate for more thoughtfully designed suburbs, writing in the 1890s that “our suburbs for the most part, are composed of frame houses, looking unsubstantial and temporary. They convey no suggestion of
dignity and retirement.” He thought that high quality design of houses and landscapes would make for better neighborhoods, no matter their scale. From this, he sought commissions for working class housing, designing high-quality buildings for the South Bay Union and the Elizabeth Peabody Settlement House in Boston, and Federally funded neighborhoods in Bridgeport, Connecticut and Bath, Maine.

Site plan designed by R. Clipston Sturgis and Arthur A. Shurcliff. University of Michigan Art & Architecture Library collections.

Sturgis would retire in 1932, moving full-time to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where he had maintained his summer residence since 1890. His summer and later permanent residence, “Martine Cottage”, made Sturgis a neighbor to friend Arthur Astor Carey, who also summered and retired in Portsmouth. The two were likely friends since Richard Clipston Sturgis’ time at his uncle’s firm, when Arthur Astor Carey’s home in Cambridge was designed by them in the early 1880s. The firm was then reorganized as Sturgis Associates Inc., led by William Stanley Parker and Alanson Hall Sturgis, his nephew. Clip would remain associated with the firm as a consultant. One of the first projects of this new firm with Clip as a consultant would be the new Central Fire Station at Broadway and Cambridge streets. It is clear that the firm utilized a timeless Colonial Revival design due to the adjacency of the site to Harvard Yard, an area where Sturgis spent much of his time. This would be his last commission in Cambridge.

Cambridge Central Fire Station, 489-491 Broadway, CHC photograph, 2015.

Like many members of the “old guard” in the Society of Arts and Crafts, Sturgis was a life-long advocate for high-quality design with handcrafted features, which was in stark contrast to the emerging Modernist/Bauhaus movement that arrived in the United States in the 1930s. In New Hampshire, an entire state away from Harvard, Sturgis was troubled by the new modern design framework of Harvard’s building program under Walter Gropius. In 1950, an 89-year-old Sturgis would pen an open letter to his alma mater in the Harvard Alumni Bulletin, with great disdain for the shift in design and craftsmanship the University had taken.

He wrote, “Time Magazine published a cut of the brutally ugly buildings designed by Gropius for Harvard and [they] actually had the temerity to say ‘the buildings are true to an old Harvard tradition…From Colonial to Bulfinch Federal, to Victorian Gothic, to nineteenth century Romanesque, Harvard has moved with the tides of U.S. architecture… these new buildings show not a gleam of interest in Harvard’s past not any sense of value of beauty.” These strong words were the result of the new Graduate Commons and also the new Allston Burr Lecture Hall, the latter would be sited adjacent to the Yard and his firm’s Central Fire Station.

Allston Burr Lecture Hall, 1951, Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson, and Abbott, architects. Photo by Daniel Reiff, CHC Collections.

In response to the letter penned by Sturgis, Gropius’s students responded to the 90-year-old retired architect in 1951, attacking his traditional position: “must we take the word of our older alumni that ivory tower is the only true architecture? An ivory tower… is a beautiful thing… but Harvard prides herself, not on her ivory tower, but rather on her free marketplace of ideas.”

Sturgis died in 1951 in his beloved Portsmouth cottage. Local papers would write, “R. Clipston Sturgis, 91, national architectural authority for more than 60 years, who almost single-handedly set Boston area’s architectural fashions…died in his home in Portsmouth, N.H. yesterday”. He is remembered for his nearly seventy years of designs, consultations and critiques with witty remarks and a staunch commitment to traditional architecture. He is buried at the Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston.

Photograph courtesy of Find a Grave, by user pstott.

Cambridge Designers: William Everett Chamberlin

Posted on November 16, 2022December 7, 2022 by cambridgehistoricalcommission

We are starting a new series on designers (architects, builders, landscape architects, and others) who have had a lasting impact on Cambridge’s built environment. For our first post in this series, we are featuring a lesser-known architect who lived and worked right here in Cambridge, William Everett Chamberlin.

*William E. Chamberlin, 1907 Class Book courtesy of MIT Libraries*

William Everett Chamberlin (1856-1911) was born in Cambridge on June 23, 1856, to Ann Maria Stimson (1822-1907) and Daniel Upham Chamberlin (1824-1898), a prominent Cambridgeport hardware dealer and president of the Cambridgeport Savings Bank. William Chamberlin (sometimes spelled Chamberlain) attended Cambridge public schools before enrolling at MIT, where he majored in Architecture.

*William E. Chamberlin, Class of 1877 photograph, courtesy of MIT Libraries*.

After graduating from MIT in 1877, the 22-year-old was hired as a draftsman by the esteemed firm of Sturgis and Brigham, architects in Boston. In February 1879, William moved to New York City, and began working as a draftsman at the internationally known firm of McKim, Mead, and White (MMW). Upon arriving in New York, William was quickly overwhelmed. Thinking there was a great deal he hadn’t learned, he was given permission by the firm to travel Europe for over two years to study in the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris, and to hone his drawing skills while travelling about the continent. He returned to the office of McKim, Mead & White in New York in early 1882, as the firm was receiving lucrative commissions with its Gilded Age clientele.

*Sketch at Chaumont-Sur-Loire by William E. Chamberlin. Published in Catalogue of the architectural exhibition, Boston Society of Architects (1886).*

Within a few months of arriving in the United States, William quit his job as a draftsman at MMW and returned to Cambridge, seemingly due to poor health – an issue which plagued him his entire life. Later publications explained that Chamberlin suffered from spinal troubles, which progressed enough that it left him confined to a wheelchair for much of his adulthood.

After a season of rest, William opened his own architecture office in downtown Boston, commuting from his parent’s house in Central Square. Recounting the early days of his own practice to former classmates in 1885, he sarcastically wrote: “I have started in business for myself here in Boston, though somehow or other, there don’t seem to be many ‘riche amateurs’ who want to build big ‘musees’ in parks as there used to be in the school programs. Still, I manage to get three meals a day, Voila”!

While Chamberlin joked about a slow start to his office, one of his earliest commissions was among his most important. In 1883, he designed an administration building and hospital wings for the new Cambridge Hospital (renamed Mount Auburn Hospital in 1947) in Cambridge. The building consisted of a main building of three stories and basement, which housed all departments of the hospital, including private rooms and two one-story wards, the whole forming three sides of a hollow square, with the opening toward the south and the river. Chamberlin worked closely with Dr. Morrill Wyman (1812-1903), an expert on the ventilation of sickrooms and public buildings and first president of the hospital, to orient the buildings facing the Charles River to maximize sun-exposure for south facing rooms and provide the full influence of southwestern breezes in the summer. Now known as the Parson’s Building (named after Emily Elizabeth Parsons a Civil War nurse who helped establish the hospital), Chamberlin’s first major commission in Cambridge set-off a prominent, yet largely overlooked career.

After receiving just a few commissions while running his own practice, Chamberlin entered into a business partnership with architect William Marcy Whidden (1857-1929). Whidden was a former classmate of Chamberlin, who’s career path mirrored much of his. They both graduated from MIT in architecture in 1877, they both studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, and both worked at the office of McKim, Mead & White. Whidden left MMW in 1885, when propositioned with the idea of running his own practice with Chamberlin. The duo established the firm of Chamberlin & Whidden that year.

The firm, led by a pair of thirty-year-old architects, was hired to design buildings all over the Boston area. Due to this success, they hired other young, promising architects to assist with drafting. One of those hires was Henry Bacon, who briefly worked for Chamberlin and Whidden before joining McKim, Mead & White. Locally, Henry Bacon could be known as the designer for the steps and walls of the Longfellow Monument in Longfellow Park, but he is best known for his design of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. (built 1915–1922), which was his final project. Within the first few years, the firm of Chamberlin and Whidden saw a lot of activity, including furnishing designs for a six-story commercial building in Boston in the Romanesque Revival style. Their major type of commission, however, was expensive, single-family suburban housing.

*Stores on South Street, Boston, Mass. Featured in American Architect and Building News, February 1887.*

The firm built beautiful homes including one on Highland Street for Robert Noxon Toppan (1836-1901) and his wife, Sarah Moody Cushing. The Colonial Revival style house was built in 1886 and is one of the earliest houses in Cambridge of the style, setting trends for its neighbors. The brick Toppan House exhibits a large Palladian window at the façade, with a rounded center bay and a full-length piazza overlooks the gently terraced landscape towards Brattle Street at the rear.

*House at Cambridge, Mass. Featured in American Architect and Building News, February 1887.*

When a design competition was announced for the new Cambridge City Hall, a few local firms were asked to submit designs following benefactor Frederick H. Rindge’s strict requirements. The advisory design committee suggested that Peabody & Stearns, Van Brunt & Howe, Longfellow, Alden & Harlow, John Lyman Faxon, and Chamberlin and Whidden all submit designs for consideration. Chamberlin and Whidden proposed a stately, symmetrical building with a strong Romanesque emphasis and a central clock tower, capped by a belfry and cupola. Their design was not accepted by Rindge, who selected Longfellow, Alden & Harlow instead. Undeterred, the young firm persevered.

*Chamberlin & Whidden proposal for Cambridge City Hall, 1888. American Architect & Building News, June 1888.*

A second time, Chamberlin and Whidden submitted in a design competition for the English High School in Cambridge, and won the design competition in 1889, securing that job. It would be their final project together in Cambridge. Their plans for the new High School called for a three-story masonry building of stone on the first floor with light-red brick above. The building was long and narrow, giving each classroom ample natural light and ventilation. Articles mentioned that there was little ornamentation as “the desire of all concerned was to construct a simple and dignified building expressive of its serious purpose”. The building was demolished in 1938 for the consolidated Cambridge High and Latin School.

*English High School, photographed 1908. Detroit Publishing Company.*

By 1890, William Whidden had moved west to Oregon and established his own firm. William promoted architect William Downes Austin (1856-1944) to partner of the firm, renaming it Chamberlin & Austin. The new firm kept busy with a steady stream of commissions, but it was clear Chamberlin’s health was preventing him from actively seeking out new projects as he once did. Many of the designs the firm completed as Chamberlin & Austin appear to have been from previous clients, showing their trust in Chamberlin’s quality designs.

One such projects was commissioned by Henry Endicott, whos large home at 151 Brattle Street was designed by Henry Bacon Jr. while working under William Chamberlin in 1888. Two years later in 1890, Endicott returned to Chamberlin to design a smaller residence on the newly laid out Brewster Street, at the rear of the Brattle Street property, for his daughter and son-in-law. The second house, much smaller in size, showcases Chamberlin’s attention to detail with the saw-tooth cut shingle and recessed porch at the entrance and gentle undulating form with continuous shingled siding.

*151 Brattle Street as depicted in American Architect and Building News, May 5, 1888.*

In 1891, William Chamberlin married Emily Douglass Abbott (1858-1916). The couple acquired a house lot on Clinton Street, at the rear of Emily’s father George Abbott’s residence on Harvard Street. That year, William designed his new house on Clinton Street and a renovation for his father’s new home on Harvard Street. The three houses were all direct neighbors. William Chamberlin’s new home on Clinton Street was the first of his own, after decades of boarding with his father and mother in Central Square. For his own house, William designed a modest, 1½ -story structure with prominent gambrel roof. The house, while altered, exhibits Chamberlin’s eclectic sense of design, which often blends styles into a single composition. William and Emily never had children. One year later, William D. Austin left the firm to partner with Frederick W. Stickney forming Stickney & Austin.

*William E. Chamberlin House (1891), 27 Clinton Street, photograph taken 11-2022.*

William E. Chamberlin entered a semi-retirement due to his worsening health, which plagued him most of his life but could never fully step away from his passion for design. When he heard about the death of his beloved former professor at MIT, Eugene Letang in 1891, Chamberlin designed a memorial tablet of bronze set into a carved marble surround. This marker still stands in the Boston Public Library, Copley Square branch location. With this work, Chamberlin showed his skill beyond designing buildings. It is possible that he was the designer of many of his family memorial stones in the family plot at Mount Auburn Cemetery.

*Eugène Létang tablet designed by W. E. Chamberlin. Ca. 1905 photograph, Boston Public Library collections.*

He was hired again by the Cambridge Hospital (now Mount Auburn Hospital) in 1896, designing a Nurse’s Residence just steps away from the Administration Building and Hospital wings he designed over ten years prior. His design for the Nurse’s Residence, like nearly all his work, blends multiple styles effortlessly into a single composition. The brick building displays strong Classical features including the central columned portico and the belt course above the second story windows which reads as a frieze band with ocular windows. Soon after in 1898, he designed the Cambridge Homes for Aged People at 360 Mt. Auburn Street with former partner Stickney and Austin.

Nearly a decade later in 1904, Chamberlin and Boston architect Clarence Blackall completed designs for the new Cambridgeport Savings Bank (where his late father once served as president) in Central Square, Cambridge. The building is perhaps Chamberlin’s most recognizable and stately extant design where he could show-off his architectural versatility. The Cambridgeport Savings Bank is a monumentally scaled limestone-clad structure with a façade dominated by recessed central bays behind an engaged Corinthian portico. The ornate stone parapet which once capped the building was replaced in the 1950s. The Cambridgeport Savings Bank building is Chamberlin’s last known work in Cambridge before his death.

*Cambridgeport Savings Bank Building, 689 Mass. Ave. CHC Postcard Collection.*

At just 55 years old, William Everett Chamberlin died from a stroke on August 6, 1911, in Manchester Massachusetts, at his father-in-law’s summer house. When news of his passing spread, fellow members of the Boston Society of Architects memorialized of Chamberlin:

William E. Chamberlin was by nature dowered with great personal charm, a clear keen brain, debonair in its perceptions, just in its conclusions; a genius for his profession of architecture which was rare; and a fresh directness of expression tempered by a delicate humor. The active use of these qualities in the work of the great marketplace was first checked and then barred to him by a disease, which prevented his working outside of his home, and for over twenty years he made that home a center of intellectual stimulus to his friends…His noble character vibrated only perfect harmonies, but, unlike the harp in the wind, in him was the soul and the strong will which decreed always, as a duty to his fellow men, that no discords should mar the beauties of this life which, in spite of one great affliction, he found and made so blessed even to the last hour.

Last known photograph of William E. Chamberlin, ca.1910

William E. Chamberlin bequeathed nearly all his sizable estate, estimated at nearly $100,000, to several Cambridge institutions. His widow, Emily D. Chamberlin, received the income from his estate during her lifetime and that after her death. After which, it was distributed in seven parts. Two-sevenths went to the Cambridge Hospital, two-sevenths to the Cambridge Homes for Aged People, and one-seventh each to the Avon Home, the Holy Ghost Hospital, and to the Department of Architecture at MIT, which he remained engaged with throughout his life. Chamberlin’s legacy has lived on not only through his extant buildings, but his generosity, in the William Everett Chamberlain (sic) Prize for achievement in design at MIT and his generous gifts to Cambridge institutions.

William Everett Chamberlin is buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery on Bellwort Path in the family plot. His monument, like many of his family members, was likely designed by himself from his Cambridge home.

*William E. Chamberlin’s monument at Mt. Auburn Cemetery. Much of lettering covered by lichen.*

Richardsonian Romanesque and The Rindge Gifts

Posted on November 8, 2022 by cambridgehistoricalcommission

Richardson and the style that bears his name

Inspired by the extant Romanesque buildings of Medieval Europe, Henry Hobson Richardson introduced a new and distinctive architectural style known as Richardsonian Romanesque. Other American architects carried the style across the country, tailoring it for houses (both freestanding and row), civic and municipal buildings, and commercial blocks and train stations.

*Henry Hobson Richardson* (1886) by Hubert von Herkomer. Wikipedia, public domain.

Richardsonian Romanesque is versatile and adaptable, but certain design elements appear consistently, including:

| Buildings are always constructed of square masonry blocks in a variety of colors and finishes.

| Roofs are distinguished by their variety: hip roofs may cap large square masses or intersect with smaller front and side gables, and towers are topped with conical or pyramidal roofs.

| Entrances and window openings are often deeply recessed under rounded arches. Doorways are highly ornamented; wide arches are decorated with sculpted shapes and patterns.

| Corner towers may be in the round, or half-round and snugged against the building.

The Rindge Gifts

During the last quarter of the 19^th century, Cambridge experienced unprecedented growth, and the need for additional civic buildings became apparent. Early in 1887 Mayor William E. Russell gathered a committee to appeal to the city’s wealthier residents to help finance the construction of a new public library. As part of his campaign, Mayor Russell approached his friend and former classmate Frederick Hastings Rindge, whose response surpassed all expectations.

Frederick Hastings Rindge

Frederick Rindge was born in Cambridge in 1857 to Samuel Baker Rindge, a wealthy Cambridge merchant, and Clarissa (Harrington) Rindge, who was wealthy in her own right. The family included six children: all but Frederick died in childhood of scarlet fever. He entered Harvard College in 1875 but spent much of his senior year in Florida because of illness. He graduated as a member of the class of 1879 and traveled extensively throughout Europe and the United States.

By 1887 Rindge’s life had changed dramatically: his father died in 1883 and his mother in 1885, making Frederick the sole inheritor of the family fortune, said to be in excess of $2.5 million. He soon married Rhoda May Knight and moved with her to California, hoping the climate would improve his health.

Rindge vowed to use part of his wealth for the public good. When Mayor Russell appealed to him for funds, Rindge responded generously, becoming Cambridge’s greatest benefactor: not only did he donate land on which to build the library, he donated the library itself. Later that year he wrote to Russell offering three more gifts in memory of his father: a new City Hall, a manual training school for boys, and a site for a new high school (which was not realized with Rindge funds).

Rindge, at home in Los Angeles, relied on a committee of trusted associates in Cambridge. The committee held limited design competitions, reviewed the submissions, and made recommendations to Rindge—but it was Rindge who made the ultimate decision. The committee was charged with overseeing the design and construction of the new buildings but to Rindge’s requirements. He kept ownership of the land and buildings until the projects met his expectations—then he gave everything to the city.

The Richardsonian Romanesque style was popular for public building in the 1880s. The three Rindge gift were all in that style, but each was designed by a different architectural firm. Thus, although each building is unique, each is in harmony with the others.

Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway. Van Brunt & Howe, 1889

Rindge awarded the contract for the new library to the prominent Boston architectural firm of Van Brunt & Howe (Henry Van Brunt and Frank M. Howe). Van Brunt and his family lived at 167 Brattle Street, Cambridge, in a house he designed. In 1884 the firm decided, surprisingly, to leave Boston for Kansas City, Missouri; Howe arrived in 1884, Van Brunt in 1887. The firm helped to spread the Richardsonian Romanesque style across the upper northwest: they built grand train stations for the Union Pacific Railroad, civic and municipal buildings, and handsome private residences. They also continued to accept commissions around Boston.

The house that Henry Van Brunt built at 167 Brattle Street.

The Cambridge Public Library is constructed of large blocks of Dedham granite and ornamented with a contrasting reddish Longmeadow sandstone. The composition features a heavily ornamented entrance porch by an asymmetrically placed tower. The squat sandstone columns of the entrance porch carry elaborate capitals of intricately carved leaves, vines, and medieval figures. The exterior is clearly influenced by H.H. Richardson’s style, but the interior reflects “Henry Van Brunt’s expertise in the functional aspects of library design. … He made firewalls and iron stacks an original feature of the Cambridge library, helping to win the commission over both McKim, Mead and White and Peabody and Stearns” (Society of American Architects Archipedia).

Cambridge Manual Training School (center) and Cambridge Public Library, ca. 1892. Harvard’s Memorial Hall is seen to the right of the training school.

Cambridge Public Library in the winter of 1954.

Cambridge City Hall, 795 Massachusetts Avenue. Longfellow, Alden & Harlow, 1890

The building is not to be palatial, but comely and substantial, its architecture expressing honesty and strength. Elaborate decoration, interior or exterior, is not desired. F.H. Rindge

Frederick Rindge selected another well-known architectural firm for City Hall: Longfellow, Alden & Harlow, comprising: Alexander Wadsworth Longfellow Jr. (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s nephew), Frank Ellis Alden, and Alfred Branch Harlow. Longfellow and Harlow had both worked for H.H. Richardson; Harlow had been with McKim, Mead & White. In Cambridge, the firm designed an elaborate Richardsonian Romanesque house for Edwin Abbott, 1 Follen Street (1889, now Longy School of Music of Bard College) and two Colonial Revival buildings, Brattle Hall (1889, now Brattle Theatre) and the J.A. Noyes house at 1 Highland Street (1894).

In accordance with Rindge’s wishes, the main exterior ornamentation is provided by the contrasting colors of masonry. All the exterior walls are pink Milford granite ashlar with rough-hewn surfaces. The foundation, belt courses between the floor levels, and window and door surrounds are all a deep brown Longmeadow brownstone. The contrasting colors of masonry, the horizontal bands of windows, and the arched entrance flanked by stocky engaged columns are all characteristic of the Richardsonian Romanesque style. The massive tower anchors the building, rising almost 160 feet over the entrance.

Cambridge City Hall under construction–note the scaffolding around the tower. The skylight in red circle brings natural light into the City Engineer’s office (now the Purchasing Department).

The two-ton bell, made by the Meneely Company of West Troy, New York, still rings the hours. Frederick Rindge believed in the power of representative government and the importance of every person’s vote, and an inscription, possibly written by Rindge himself, is cast in raised letters on the bell.

Cheerfully I ring the hour
From my house within the tower
But I would a lesson teach
Even bells men’s hearts may reach.
The Lesson:
The ballot free and pure
The rights of all secure
Wrong finds antidote
When each voter casts his vote.

The clock below the belfry was manufactured by the E. Howard Watch & Clock Company of Waltham with a clock face on each side of the tower. A specialist regularly retunes the clock, ensuring its accuracy.

Frederick Rindge formally deeded the completed building to the city on October 22, 1890.

Deed of Gift for City Hall from
Frederick Hastings Rindge to City of Cambridge

Stay tuned for the final installment, all about the Cambridge Manual Training School.

Cambridge City Hall all lit up for the 2017 annual dance party. Kyle Klein photo.

Gothic, Glass, and the Goodhues

Posted on December 1, 2021December 6, 2021 by ehillchc

The Arts and Crafts Movement developed in England in the 1860s in response to the increasing industrialization of production. Factories were turning out everything from furniture and fabric to architectural elements and selling all cheaply. Advocates of the movement believed that these mass-produced items lacked style, beauty, and individuality and desired a return to the unique, high-quality goods made by artisans and artists using traditional methods.

Arts and Crafts ideals migrated to America beginning in the 1880s. In 1897, the first US exhibition of contemporary crafts was organized by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and sparked a design reform movement in the United States. Craftspeople, consumers, and manufacturers realized the aesthetic and technical potential of the applied arts. Architects, artists, and intellectuals were influenced by their studies of old English architecture and design; Gothic Revival and Tudor Revival buildings proliferated in Cambridge and across the country.

The brothers Bertram and Harry Goodhue were early practitioners of medieval Gothic design and helped transform American architecture and art for decades to come.

Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue

*^{Bertram Goodhue, undated. Courtesy of Panama-California Exposition Digital Archive.}*

Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue (1869-1924) was born in Pomfret, Connecticut, to Charles Wells Goodhue and his second wife, Helen Grosvenor Eldredge. Bertram attended the New Haven Collegiate and Commercial Institute. He became enamored of the Gothic-style buildings on Yale’s nearby campus. He wanted to become an architect himself but could not afford university, so in lieu of formal training, at sixteen years old he moved to Manhattan to apprentice at the architectural firm of Renwick, Aspinwall and Russell. He later relocated to Boston, where he joined other young, artistic intellectuals to found Boston’s Society of Arts and Crafts. Through this group Goodhue met  Ralph Adams Cram; the two men would be business partners for almost twenty-five years. In 1891, they founded the architectural firm of Cram, Wentworth and Goodhue (renamed Cram, Goodhue and Ferguson in 1898 after Wentworth’s death) and became proponents of Neo-Gothic architecture, accepting commissions from significant ecclesiastical, academic, and institutional clients. Their 1902 design of the United States Military Academy at West Point was a major milestone in the firm’s career.

*^{Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue (left) and Ralph Adams Cram (center) in their Boston architectural studio with a client (and a dog).  Courtesy of Cram & Ferguson archives.}*

Soon after, the company opened an office in New York where Goodhue would preside, leaving Cram to operate in Boston. At first, the men worked as a productive team, complementing each other’s strengths; later they began to compete, sometimes submitting independent proposals for the same commission. The partnership ended when Cram was selected as the architect of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan– on Goodhue’s supposed turf. When Goodhue left to begin his own practice in 1914, Cram had already created his dreamed-of Gothic Revival commission at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, and continued to work in the Gothic style mode for the rest of his career. Goodhue branched out from the Gothic mode which gained him such prominence, and designed notable Byzantine and Spanish Revival buildings all over the country. He died in 1924 at the age of fifty-four and at his request was interred in a wall vault at the Church of the Intercession, the building he considered his finest design. The centerpiece of the monument is a life-size effigy of Goodhue in the manner of those preserved in medieval English country churches.

Church of the Intercession, designed by Bertram Goodhue, the building he considered his finest design. Image c.1915 by Wurst Brothers.

Harry Eldredge Goodhue

Harry Eldredge Goodhue (1873-1918), Bertram’s younger brother, was born in Pomfret, Connecticut, and attended the Holderness School in Plymouth, New Hampshire. In 1892, at nineteen, he joined the Boston Art Students’ Association and became an advocate for and expert in traditional stained glassmaking processes. Harry began designing stained glass for his brother’s firm and was sent to Europe to study, draw, and collect medieval stained glass. In 1900, Bertram Goodhue’s firm was chosen as the architect of Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Newport, Rhode Island; in 1902, Harry began designing their Brown Memorial Window, his first major commission. The window was the first in America to be made of antique glass in accordance with techniques refined in thirteenth-century Europe. From this, Harry became known as one of only three stained glass artisans then reviving the art of medieval glassmaking.

Harry Goodhue opened his own shop at 23 Church Street in Harvard Square, Cambridge, in 1903, soon after completing the memorial window. He was sought-after by church people and architects who were intrigued by the medieval quality of his translucent and richly colored hand-blown stained glass and preferred it to the opaque opalescent glass that was popular at the time. Opalescent stained glass was developed in the late nineteenth century by John La Farge and Louis C. Tiffany and presents a milky, streaky, and iridescent appearance. In 1903 Harry wrote a piece for the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts’ monthly publication, Handicraft, criticizing the opalescent “American” style as not really stained glass, for it is absolutely different from what has been understood by the term.” In a subsequent issue, the artist Sarah Wyman Whitman (featured previously on our blog) wrote in opposition to Goodhue’s opinion and praised the experimentations of La Farge and Tiffany in the development of the opalescent/American method and claimed that academics and experts varied in their preference.

_{Circa 1930 image of 23 Church Street with added fourth floor for Goodhue studio. Cambridge Historical Commission Photograph.}

With additional positive press and commissions from churches and homeowners, Goodhue outgrew his studio on Church Street. When asked, the property owner obliged him by adding an entire floor to the building. The addition was completed in 1907, and Goodhue expanded his company. However, by 1916, Harry’s business was in decline, and he closed his Cambridge shop. 23 Church street would later be heavily altered in 1936 when the top three floors were removed and the building redesigned in the Art Deco style we see today.

*^{23 Church Street (2019). CHC staff photo.}*

After closing his Cambridge shop, Harry became affiliated with Vaughan & O’Neill & Co. that had a studio on Sudbury Street. Harry’s brother Bertram felt that this company was beneath his brother and refused to order windows from them. Between 1903 and his death in 1918, Goodhue created antique stained glass windows for more than seventy buildings in twenty-one states and Canada. During fifteen plus years of perfecting his craft, he trained dozens of apprentices, including his wife, Mary, and their eldest son, Harry.

*^{All Saints Church, Ashmont. Adoration by Kings and Shepherds window by Harry Eldredge Goodhue, pre-restoration, 1898. © Julie L. Sloan}*

Mary Louise Goodhue

Mary Louise (Wright) Goodhue (1876-1965) was born in Cincinnati to Juliet and Daniel T. Wright. Her father was a judge on the Ohio Supreme Court, and her brother, Daniel, held an Associate Justice seat on the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. Mary married Harry Goodhue in 1904 and had three sons, Harry, Daniel, and William. The couple settled in Cambridge and first resided on Buckingham Place, soon after, relocating to a rental on Martin Street. By 1908 the family had bought a house lot on Fayerweather Street and hired the architectural firm of Newhall and Blevins to design an Arts and Crafts style house. Mary taught singing and violin at her home to young students and assisted her husband in his growing stained glass company.

Mrs. Goodhue was the president of the Cambridge Musical Club, as well as a suffragist. When Harry died in 1918, she took over the stained glass company; she fulfilled commissions and taught their eldest son the art of making antique glass. In a 1920 Boston Globe article, Mary explained her ability to take over the family business so quickly. “Having worked so much with my husband, it comes easy for me to carry on the business. I have hundreds of his designs to guide me and find little trouble in selecting portions of them for the work I get. I know all about his ideals and became so impregnated with his imagination and genius that I love the work, even as did he.” She continued, “when he [Harry] died, I simply had to take up the practical part of the work, but as I was well taught in the artistic part, I found no trouble in mastering the business part.” The article listed Mary as the only female, stained glass maker in America and highlighted her winning proposal for a memorial window to be placed in Pilgrim Hall in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in celebration of the Massachusetts Bay Tercentenary. She had bested dozens of male artists to win the commission.

*^{Photograph of Pilgrim Hall windows by Mary L. Goodhue. © Julie L. Sloan}*

Mary Goodhue is credited with stained glass windows in churches in the Boston area and as far as Providence and Detroit. Her memorial windows at Pilgrim Hall and the First Parish Church of Brookline are her most notable. When Harry, the oldest, came of age, he took up the family business, and Mary returned to her other passion, music. In 1935 she wrote “Stagefright and its Cure“, to help musicians and public speakers understand the psychological reasons for stage fright and ways to overcome it. Mary lived at the family home on Fayerweather Street until her mid-80s. After the Great Depression, when her children had left home, she converted the single-family to a duplex and rented out one side for income. She died in Braintree, Massachusetts, at eighty-eight years old.

*^{56 Fayerweather Street, built in 1914 for Harry and Mary Goodhue. CHC photo 11-2021.}*

Harry “Wright Goodhue

Harry Wright Goodhue (1905-1931) closely followed his father’s footsteps in medieval stained glass artistry, but in order to distinguish himself from his father, he went by Wright Goodhue, his middle and mother’s maiden name. Growing up in Cambridge, Wright spent most of his free time in his father’s studio, learning how to make stained glass windows the old way. Wright’s “studio” was described in a newspaper account published when he was 11 years old. “In a corner of the roomy studio where his father works, young Harry set up his easel and his drawing board. Here he spends long hours depicting the deeds of the Round Table knights, the battles of biblical heroes…”

He attended the Russell School before attending the Cambridge Latin School, leaving after two years. Instead of a conventional education, Wright attended evening classes at the Boston Normal Art School and worked as a draftsman at the architectural firm of Allen & Collins during the day at just 16 years old.

His first two professional projects were executed in 1921 at just sixteen years old. He designed the ornamental details for the wooden doors at Lindsey Memorial Chapel (an addition designed by Allen & Collens to Emmanuel Episcopal Church on Newbury Street, Boston, and he designed his first stained glass window – the chancel window for his uncle Bertram’s First Cong. Church, Montclair, New Jersey. Soon after, while working as a draftsman under Allen & Collens, Wright was asked to design 36 stained glass medallions for the Teachers’ College at Columbia University, a commission the practice was working on. This commission allowed Wright and his mother to purchase a studio space in Boston, when Wright was just eighteen.

Soon after, when his employer received the contract to design the Second Universalist Church (now St. Clement Eucharistic Shrine) in Boston, he was asked to provide windows for the Gothic style building. Together with his mother, the artist, in his teens, furnished designs and made the windows. Soon after, stained glass commissions came in rapidly. Window commissions overwhelmed the small operation included an 18-foot rose window for the Sacred Heart Church in Jersey City. Wright completed three commissions in Cambridge. He designed six circular clerestory windows as part of Allen & Collens’ 1923 restoration of Bigelow Chapel at Mount Auburn Cemetery, the Josephine Peabody Marks window for Radcliffe College, and the Martha and Lazarus Window at St. James Church in North Cambridge. Wright began to regret his lack of formal education, and even as his workload grew, he began to study for the entrance exam for admission to Harvard. He was admitted to Harvard in 1927 at the age of 22. Spread thin between his work and schooling, he left at the end of two years, without a degree.

*^{1924 passport application photo of Wright Goodhue, then 19 years old.}*

As his prominence in the field grew, the young man became consumed with work. His career hit a crescendo when Allen & Collens were selected to collaborate on the design of the 22-story Riverside Church in Manhattan, with Wright asked to design and make some of the windows for the massive edifice. The Riverside Church was modeled after the 13th Century Gothic cathedral in Chartres, France, a building Wright understood well from his earlier trip to Chartres and other medieval towns and cities in Europe. Wright’s 1924 passport application explained he would be visiting France and England to “study”. This trip was possibly inspired by the Riverside Church commission and from his father’s writings about the Chartres Cathedral and it’s renowned 12th-century stained glass windows.

*^{Photograph of Mercy window in Riverside Church, Wright Goodhue. © Julie L. Sloan}*

*^{Clipping of Wright Goodhue with his mother, Mary Louise Goodhue, designing the Mercy window for Riverside Church, NY. Photo courtesy of Riverside Church Archives.}*

In 1930, Wright married Cornelia Evans, an academic and writer, who studied at Lasell Seminary for Young Women and Wellesley College, both in Massachusetts, and later Columbia University, New York City. The couple resided in Greenwich Village. Tragically, in 1931 just one month after his 26th birthday, Wright Goodhue died by suicide at a hotel in Providence. He was buried in the family plot in the Old North Cemetery in Pomfret, Connecticut. After his death, the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard, featured his work in an exhibition. His mother also donated some of his works to the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. In his 1936 autobiography, Ralph Adams Cram, an architect who worked with Wright on numerous commissions, recalled Wright’s “great, unhappy, and unique genius”. Cram reminisced about Wright’s genius in a 1932 piece in Stained Glass Magazine, where he mentioned Wright’s final completed piece, a wood sculpture “Madonna and Child”. Cram writes, “There is something mystical about this last work of his which, in a way, links it with the shadow that came heavily and increasingly upon him during the last years of his life…”

^{Photograph of Wright’s final completed work, “Madonna and Child”. From Stained Glass Magazine 09-1932.}

Queen Anne in Cambridge

Posted on September 15, 2021September 9, 2021 by cambridgehistoricalcommission

Of course, Queen Anne never actually set foot in Cambridge. But the style of architecture named after her arrived from England in the late 1800’s. The predominant architect of the style in England was Richard Norman Shaw. It was named “Queen Anne” because of a slightly misconceived idea that the style popular during her reign (1704-1714) was conglomeration of renaissance ornament glued to essentially medieval buildings. But, as it turns out, Shaw and others, while interested in medieval architecture, were far more influenced by Elizabethan and Jacobean buildings. Many Americans first saw the Queen Anne style at the Philadelphia Centennial in 1875, where the British government built several houses in that style. It took off in popularity soon after.

Balanced asymmetry, and abundance of building materials and decorative details are the most predominant exterior features of Queen Anne style. Towers, gables, wrap around porches, Palladian windows, and an assortment of decorative shingles, terracotta tiles, decorative brick work, dentils, columns, spindles, bay windows, balustrades, set back entrances, and wood or slate roofs might all be included. The excess of decoration frequently came to be referred to as “gingerbread.” One might almost call the style “hodge-podge,” except that the asymmetrical variations and exaggerated decoration were intentional design decisions.

Clipping of example Queen Anne diagram from “A Field Guide to American Houses” by Virginia McAlester.

The three examples below demonstrate varieties on the theme.

298 HARVARD STREET

Designed in 1888 by Boston architect J. A. Hasty and built for William Haskett Wood, (1846-1912) on the “Old Morse Estate.”

This house includes six varieties of window treatment, two triangular pediments, a large corner tower with conical roof, decorative millwork, and standard and fish-scale shingles. The exterior front façade features a decorative triangle gable on the left with intricate acanthus carving and recessed panels, supported by shingled brackets. This is balanced on the right by a round tower with an “eyebrow-like” segmental dormer. In between on the roof, and slightly set back is a classic gabled dormer with shingled brackets.

*Gable detailing. Photo courtesy of The Harder Group.*

Across the second floor are several horizontal courses of shingles, followed by many more courses of fish scale shingle. The three second floor windows reflect the decorative styles and millwork of the windows above them. On the left sculpted millwork, the center more classic, and on the right curved lintels as above in the tower, with fish-scale and other fretwork.

The first-floor porch joins a bay window on the left with the round tower window on the right. Four sets of double turned posts supporting the porch roof, and just below the porch gutter runs a decorative panel of millwork. The deeply recessed front door is bordered by two Palladian style windows. The article below (Cambridge Chronicle, November 3, 1888) describes the luxurious interior. And, should you be concerned, “the plumbing will be of the most approved pattern.”

Interior architectural detail at stairhall. Photo courtesy of The Harder Group.

William Haskett Wood was one of those fortunate businessmen whose name matched his profession: lumber dealer. He arrived in Cambridge in 1867 and clerked with lumber dealers Gale, Dudley & Co. Within five years he had formed a partnership with George W. Gale. When this firm dissolved in 1881 Wood went on to buy out Burrage Bros. (wharf at the junction of Broadway, third and Main streets) center of operations. He married Anna M. Dudley. The family lived in the house for approximately 25 years, it passing out of the Wood family at some time between William Wood’s death in 1912 and 1916, when Joseph E. Doherty, Cambridge Water Commissioner lived in the home. In its lifetime this building has been a private home, a Jewish Community Center, the Castle School, (a residential program for troubles children 13-17), and the KLH Day Care Center. In its present incarnation it is a condominium complex.

39 GARFIELD STREET

Built 1885-1886 for Edward Augustus Shepherd (1859-1945)

A much simpler version of Queen Anne Style can be seen in the house at 39 Garfield Street. Although the asymmetry is not as great as 298 Harvard Street, it is evident in the offset entrance and variety of windows and their placement. The peak of the gable is “standard” shingle, but around and below the Palladian windows is fish scale shingle. Other typical decorative features include the cutwork on the eaves, decorative spandrels on the wrap around porch and carving in the tympanum over the front porch stairs. Rosettes (or sunflowers?) featured in the spandrels and tympanum are common decorative details of the style. The skirt below the front rail is also decorative cutwork.

Edward A. Shepherd was a wholesale hay and grain dealer in Boston, and served as both auditor and treasurer of at the Boston Chamber of Commerce. He was married to Helen D. Strean. The family lived in the house for approximately 58 years. His house is surrounded by several other Queen Anne style homes on the street.

33 AGASSIZ STREET

Built 1890 for Horace Phelps Blackman (1833-1917) by Boston architect Eugene L. Clark

The first thing one notices about this house is the use of fieldstone on the first story, “from the fields of Arlington and Lexington.” The usual asymmetry is reflected in the placement a gable with an oriel window on the left, with a tower on the right. Two imposing stone arches surround a window and front door on the first floor. There are a variety of shingle applications: fish scale on the gable and pediment of the gable window, with variegated horizontal courses on the second floor. Tall chimneys with decorative brickwork are another common feature of the style, and one can be seen here on the Lancaster Street side of the house. The side façade also includes a gable with Palladian windows, second floor balcony and a porch. The interior is lavishly finished with mahogany and oak, and described in the newspaper article from 1891 below.

Interior stairhall, photo courtesy of real estate listing.

Horace P. Blackman was a piano forte and organ maker, first with Chickering of Boston, and subsequently with the Mason & Hamlin Organ & Piano Co. He retired from business in 1892 and served as Alderman in 1893. He became involved in real estate investment. By 1900 he listed himself as “capitalist” of the census that year. He was married to Lydia Lucretian Flint. The Blackman family lived in the house for approximately 32 years.

Torn Down Tuesday: 42 & 48 Quincy Street

Posted on August 24, 2021August 24, 2021 by Brittany F.

It’s #TornDownTuesday (or is it #TransferredTuesday)! Today’s Gund Hall is located on the site of multiple buildings on Quincy Street, with the original 48 Quincy Street structure being relocated in 1968.

Images from Dudley Borland Card Collection, no date

42 Quincy Street

To start, 42 Quincy Street was a wood-shingled square house with a rear ell that was built in 1844. In July 1844, the President and Fellows of Harvard College granted Henry Greenough the land known as the “Delta”.

Daniel Reiff image, before fire, ca. 1968

Henry Greenough of Boston (1807-1883) was a merchant and amateur architect who was brother to Horatio and Richard Saltonstall Greenough, both sculptors. Henry attended Harvard from 1823-1826 and then studied architecture in Italy. 42 Quincy St, also known as the Greenough House, was built by Greenough for his mother, Mrs. David Greenough (Eliza Ingersoll). This pattern-book Italianate style house is the earliest known house designed by Greenough. He also designed the First Church in Cambridge (1830) and the Cambridge Athenaeum (1851). After his Italianate on Quincy St, he made houses in 1854-1856 with low mansard roofs. Greenough designed his mother’s home with a brick basement, 4 wooden risers for the front stoop, and an unusual canopy with arched openings. It was originally painted brown.

Daniel Reiff images, 42 Quincy Street after fire and demolition, ca. 1968

Greenough House was passed down through the family until 1891 when it was sold to the Corporation of the New Church Theological School, who used it as offices. In 1966 it was obtained by Harvard for its Economics Department offices. Unfortunately, on January 8, 1968 the house was destroyed by a major fire likely caused by a defective boiler. The house was scheduled for demolition later that year to make way for Gund Hall.

48 Quincy Street

Next door was 48 Quincy Street, which has a more pleasant conclusion. Built in 1838 by William Saunders for Prof Daniel Tredwell, 48 Quincy was a Regency Greek Revival style house. It featured wide, flat pilasters on flush boarded walls and a square, hip roof. In 1847, it was bought by Jared Sparks who started living at the address in 1849 when he became president of Harvard. Sparks is considered one of the earliest modern historians. Subsequently known as the Jared Sparks House, it was purchased by the New Church Theological School and in 1901 was moved on the site to make room for the Swedenborg Chapel. However, in October 1968 it was again moved, but around the corner to 21 Kirkland Street, to make way for Gund Hall. You can still see the home today at its new address!

Many of the images from this post come from our newly available Dudley Borland Card Collection. Keep an eye out for future posts featuring this collection! Would you like us to make it a weekly or biweekly feature?

For more information on these buildings, email us at histcomm@cambridgema.gov.

Historic Building: 299 Concord Avenue

Posted on August 13, 2021December 4, 2023 by Meta Partenheimer

It’s time for a historic building spotlight! We are featuring the former filling station at the corner of Concord Avenue and Walden Street in North Cambridge. Today, the building has a whole new look.

Concord Avenue near the corner of Walden Street, facing east. September 6, 1933.

In the early twentieth century, Concord Avenue served as a main transportation route, though the area had evolved from its early rural roots to a more suburban character. The advent of the automobile as a mode of transportation for the average person opened up this area to further residential development. Fresh Pond and Kingsley Park were also major draws for day-trippers taking a drive into the countryside. With people and cars came the need for fueling stations. The gasoline station at 299 Concord Avenue was one of 8 gas stations to be built along Concord Avenue between 1905 and 1930.

Rotogravure originally printed in the March 8, 1925 edition of the *Boston Traveler* as part of the series “Colonial Filling Stations of Boston.”

As an example of an early gas station, the Colonial Filling Station at 299 Concord Ave was built in 1924 for $7,000. The building was designed in the Colonial Revival style and executed by Boston-based consulting engineer Allen Hubbard. Born in 1860, Hubbard spent his early life in Westfield, Mass and later became the town’s first major league baseball player. Hubbard attended Yale to obtain an engineering degree and became the college’s baseball team captain. Soon after his graduation in 1883, Hubbard left his baseball career behind and worked as a bookkeeper and engineer for contractors in Boston before forming a business partnership with Hollis French in 1898. Throughout his career, Hubbard would consult on various large-scale engineering projects, including the Boston Public Library.

Allen Hubbard in his Yale catcher’s uniform (via adonisterry.tripod.com)

Hubbard’s design for the hip-roofed structure was elaborately detailed with dentil moldings, a Federal-style doorway with elliptical fan light and side lights, round-arched windows with lancet-arched muntins, red roofing shingles, and a wood balustrade at the roof peak. The masonry detail further embellished the station, with arched brickwork over the windows and a soldier course of bricks at the base, topped by a course of headers. A large sign band filled the space between the doorway and the cornice.

299 Concord Ave ca. 1973-74. Photograph by Richard Cheek.

The station went through a series of owners over the decades. A garage bay for automobile servicing was added in 1938. When the building was surveyed by the CHC in 1973, it was in nearly original condition and one of the oldest surviving of its kind in Cambridge. By 1978, gasoline services had ceased, and the building was converted to office use. Then-owner Cambridge Alternative Power Co., Inc. (CAPCO) undertook major alterations to and built an addition. Subsequent projects included the construction of a windmill and solar greenhouse.

299 Concord Ave in October 1982. Photograph by CHC staff.

In 2003, the CHC received an application to demolish the former gas station and its additions to make way for new construction. Rather than demolish the structure, an updated proposal was submitted in which the new design would preserve the original fabric of the façade to the fullest extent possible.

Today, the original filling station façade can be seen from Concord Ave.

View north from Concord Ave via Google Street View (October 2017)

SOURCES

“1883 Yale Baseball Captain Added to the Bulldog Club Posthumously” article by Dan Genovese
(The Yale Newsletter, Winter 2005)
Cambridge Public Library Online Newspaper Database
CHC survey files

A Brief History of The Fresh Pond Hotel

Posted on July 23, 2021July 26, 2021 by cambridgehistoricalcommission

View of Fresh Pond Hotel, 1896 (Cambridge Historical Commission)

The Fresh Pond Hotel was built in 1796 on the bluff overlooking the pond on eight acres of land that Jacob Wyeth had purchased from his father, Ebenezer Wyeth.

Detail: Peter Tufts, A Plan of The First Parish in Cambridge, 1813

By the early 1790’s the West Boston Bridge and the Concord Turnpike had made the area attractive to wealthy Bostonians escaping heat and crowds in the city, and Jacob Wyeth’s hotel became a popular resort. Wyeth hired the architects Joseph Moore and John Walton to design the hotel building in the Federal style, which was later updated to the newly popular Greek Revival style.

Lithograph depicting the Fresh Pond Hotel, ca. 1845 (History Cambridge)

Other factors contributing to the hotel’s success were “the building of Mount Auburn Cemetery and Watertown Branch Railroad (which brought people directly to Fresh Pond). It wasn’t long before the Hotel became a buzzing social center. It gave people a place to escape the city heat in the summer and offered fishing, fowling, sailing, rowing, bowling, fine dining with wines and other alcohols, and an orchestra for dancing.”

When, in the 1880s, the hotel was refused a liquor license, business began a downhill slide which lead to its closing. In 1885, the property was sold to the Sisters of St. Joseph who converted the building for their convent.

In 1892 the former hotel/convent went up for auction and was bought by John E. Perry, a Cambridge Alderman. He moved the building to 234 Lakeview Avenue, where it was converted to apartments. Although the exterior clapboards were replaced by stucco, the interior space retains much of its original detail. It is on the National Register of Historic Places.

234 Lakeview Avenue, August 2019 (Google Street View)

Today’s post was written by CHC volunteer Kathleen Fox.

Sources

“Inside the Architecture: Fresh Pond Hotel” by NeighborMedia Archive.
https://www.cctvcambridge.org/node/614987.
Building Old Cambridge, Susan E. Maycock and Charles M. Sullivan, Cambridge Historical Commission. MIT Press 2016.