Welcome back to our Torn Down Tuesday series! Today, we are featuring the house that once stood at 329 Harvard Street in Mid-Cambridge.
Detail of 1886 Cambridge Hopkins Atlas
In December 1848, George Washington Whittemore (1812-1870) purchased a lot from the Francis Dana estate. The lot was situated on the north side of Harvard Street between Cotton (now Hancock) and Dana Streets and backed on Hastings (now Chatham) street. The Whittemore family was prominent in the business and cultural life of Boston and Cambridge: George W. had many business ventures and was most notably a Boston hotel proprietor. After the home was finished, George W. moved in with his wife, Synia H. (Richardson), on July 8, 1850.
Photograph c. 1865 showing house, stable, and grounds
Originally richly ornamented, this suburban house blended Italianate, Greek Revival, and Gothic details in an eclectic but picturesque and singularly harmonious manner. The house typified a trend away from the strict neo-classicism of around 1850. The house was originally remarkable for extensive use of exterior papier mâché ornament. The front and side eaves of the main block, and the cupola (measuring 8′ in diameter) were trimmed with molded papier mâché “gingerbread” mounted on wooden barge boards, until they were destroyed in an accidental fire from painter’s blow-torch in 1931. The cupola retained its trim at least as late as 1951. In its eclectic design, the house was typical of suburban residences built on Dana Hill c. 1850, when formal Greek Revival tradition was yielding to freer Italianate forms and more picturesque massing.
To enter the home from Harvard Street, one would approach the front steps: five granite risers flanked by granite plinths led to a granite stoop recessed within an open rectangular front entrance. A round-arched front doorway was deeply recessed within the stoop and sheltered by a balcony.
Entrance photographed by Jack E. Baucher (August 1964)
Inside, single-paneled pilasters with 1′-high plinths and gessoed papier mâché Greek Corinthian capitals flanked all drawing room openings and “supported” plaster entabulature.
Interior pilaster detail photographed by Jack E. Baucher (August 1964)
The original interior of the home was highly lavish and Victorian. Red flocked drawing room wallpaper with cream and gilt ground dated from 1850 and remained to the end of the Whittemore occupancy. The drawing room also had original richly-colored imported carpet, red velvet lambrequins with gilded cornices, and a set of very elaborate neo-rococo furniture inspired by Louis XV forms.
Interior of 329 Harvard St photographed by Richard Ruggles, 1937 (for D.P. Myer)
The set included two white marble-topped tables, a mirrored étagère with a low marble-topped console, and chairs, sofa and footstool upholstered in original red velvet. According to family records, the curtain cornices and furniture were made by a group of travelling Swiss artisans skilled in comp work and frame making.
Interior of 329 Harvard St photographed by Richard Ruggles, 1937 (for D.P. Myer)
Marble busts of Hiram Powers’ Persephone and the Apollo Belvedere, a plaster bust of Washington, two oval family portraits of young girls ca. 1850, an oil copy of Guido Reni’s Aurora, alabaster vases, parian ware figurines, and a multitude of bibelots (a small, decorative ornament or trinket) completed the lavish drawing room ensemble, which remained intact until 1949.
Interior of 329 Harvard St photographed by Richard Ruggles, 1937 (for D.P. Myer)
A significant modernization of the house was undertaken in 1922-23 where a coal-fired hot air heating replaced the oil-fired steam system, the flooring was updated, electric lights and a laundry room were installed, among many other amenities. The home continued to be passed down to successive Whittemores until is was sold out of family in June 1951. The house changed hands several times from 1962-1964, by which time the structure had badly deteriorated. Finally, the house was demolished in 1965 to clear site for the Dana Hill Apartments. To learn more about this building, check out yesterday’s Modern Monday Instagram post!
329 Harvard St photographed by Roger Gilman, ca. 1930s
Source: Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) report by Dr. Bainbridge Bunting (1964)
Today marks the birthday of a locally influential architect, Benjamin Thompson (1918-2002) who was a founding member of The Architects Collaborative (TAC). In operation from 1945 to 1995, TAC was an architectural firm of eight architects who specialized in post-war modernism design. Thompson left TAC in 1966 due to creative differences and he established Benjamin Thompson and Associates (BTA) a year later. He also embarked on an interior design company, Design Research (D/R), which he owned from 1953 to 1970 when it then changed ownership. Thompson’s original store was located at 57 Brattle Street.
Thompson, Benjamin. “Let’s Make it Real.” Architectural Record. January 1966.
To celebrate Thompson’s birthday, we want to highlight one of his many projects. We’ve chosen his renovation work on a historic building here in Cambridge since it marks his efforts to combine his modernist sentiments with a conscious effort to retain older architectural design. The choice was further bolstered by Thompson’s personal connection with his client, Harvard University. Thompson was an instructor for the Harvard Graduate School of Design and from 1964 to 1968 he presided as Chair of the Architectural Department. Furthermore, the CHC possesses the Benjamin Thompson Associates Collection (CHC051), which contains booklets, images, and other formats concerning the work of the architecture firm and Thompson’s designs.
So what is the building? Boylston Hall, located at the southwest side of the Harvard Yard. But before we get into Thompson’s renovation, we’d like to give some historical background of the building.
CHC digital image. Ca. 1870
Boylston Hall was designed and built by Paul Schulze (1828-1897) in 1858. Schulze was a German immigrant who moved to America in 1849. He had previously planned and constructed Appleton Chapel (built 1858) for Harvard University and the success of that venture motivated members of the Harvard faculty to advocate for his continued employment. One spokesperson was Erving Professor Josiah P. Cooke, Jr. who wrote a letter of encouragement to Harvard’s President Rev. James Walker. As part of the Chemistry Department, Cooke’s letter explained how his department was being inadequately serviced in the University Hall.
Items from CHC051 collection. Featuring Boylston Hall and Design Research building
For some time, the Chemistry Department was held in University Hall’s basement. Conversations had begun the spring and summer of 1856 to search for alternative accommodations and it was decided that a purpose-built chemistry laboratory facility was the solution. It would be the first building of its kind in America whose construction was specifically dedicated to chemistry. Schulze completed and submitted his description of Boylston Hall on January 15, 1857.
Boylston Hall received financial patronage from Ward Nicholas Boylston (1747-1828) who posthumously donated a large sum to the University under the agreement that the new construction would adhere to his stipulations. Boylston required that the building would house an Anatomical Museum, a Mineralogical Cabinet, a Cabinet of Apparatus, lecture rooms, and a chemistry lab — the final component aligning smoothly with the University’s needs. To speed up the construction process, a subscription was raised to increase the building fund to $40,000.
Schulze, as part of Schulze & Schoen, constructed the 117’ x 70’ Boylston Hall. Designed in the Renaissance style, Boylston Hall has been labeled as part of the Boston Granite Style and this style became highly influential in Boston’s mercantile buildings and wharf structures, such as Mercantile Wharf, the Custom House Block, and Quincy Market. Boylston Hall has likewise been equated to Schulze’s contemporary and prolific Bostonian architect, Gridley J.F. Bryant, by architectural historians due to their similar material use.
Items from CHC051 collection. Featuring Benjamin Thompson’s interior designs
Nonetheless, Boylston Hall exterior was of Rockport granite set in rough large blocks almost 2 feet thick. The building held curved windows with Italianate tracery and its entrance was centered. Contracted skilled workers included Ebenezer Johnson, master mason; Jonas Fitch, carpentry; Smith and Felton, ironwork; Thomas Haviland, plastering; and John Bates, painting and glazing. The interior was lined with brick and plaster and it was split into two stories of 17ft and 23ft tall. The first floor held the Public Laboratory, the library, the Anatomical Laboratory, and lecture and recitation rooms, which were connected by a central hall. The Anatomical Museum, the Mineralogical Cabinet, the Cabinet of Apparatus, and more lecture rooms were located on the second floor. At the time, the items in these exhibits were under the stewardship of Professor Jeffries Wyman but presently some are now housed at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.
Boylston Hall was part of a Harvard trend where buildings were situated in relation to the Yard. The front facade faced inwardly instead of toward Massachusetts Avenue or even University Hall, which was once the center of a campus design plan. Douglas Shand-Tucci states in Harvard University: An Architectural Tour, “Boylston Hall’s original role as one of the heralds of the New Yard” helped bolster this variant campus nucleus that countered the Old Yard” (151). It also became the site of great expansion to the Chemistry Department under the direction of Erving Professor Josiah P. Cooke, Jr., Professor Charles Loring Jackson, and Professor Henry Barker Hill.
Notman & Son image. 1874
By 1870, the Chemistry Department required more space, and so a mansard roof, incorporating a new third story, was added to accommodate a new laboratory. Peabody and Stearns facilitated the extension and the work was completed in 1871. However, after another twenty years, in 1895 there were again remarks about the space being too cramped for the department’s growing needs. In 1902, a 85’ x 35’ laboratory was adjoined to the basement. According to a Harvard Crimson article, the addition included 8 double benches, 2 single benches, and 14 sinks. Boylston Hall served the Chemistry Department for another twenty years.
In 1929, the Hall was remodeled to house the Harvard-Yenching Institute, an independent public charitable trust founded in 1928 by the Charles M. Hall estate. Still active today, the institute is committed to advancing higher education in Asia in the humanities and social sciences. However, it is no longer headquartered in Boylston Hall; the Institute left in 1958 before another renovation.
CHC survey image. 1976
1959 Renovation. Interior views. Image from CHC Thompson collection
1959 Renovation. Interior Elevation. Image from CHC Thompson collection.
The 1959 renovation to Boylston Hall has been lauded repeatedly. It was the work of the TAC with Benjamin Thompson as principal-in-charge. As mentioned earlier, Thompson was concerned with “adapting spaces to conserve the best qualities of traditional architecture,” as quoted from a booklet available in our CHC051 collection. Coined as “recycling” and cited as the first of its kind in the area, Thompson’s design took great pains to retain the original Boylston Hall. For instance, the new arrangement placed fixed glass sheets in the curved windows. This was intended to improve the visual appeal priorly inhibited by wooden mullions. The new version of glass set in bronze would offset the granite and impose fewer interruptions. Additionally, Bainbridge Bunting stated in Harvard : an architectural history that “the detailing of other new elements, such as the arched metal vestibule at the main entrance, enhances the sense of strength conveyed by the granite masonry” (51). However, the fixity of the windows would prove to be a problem in the future.
Nevertheless, Thompson’s main task for the renovation was to accommodate more office spaces. Over the course of the project, Boylston Hall went from 39,206 sq ft to 53,300 sq ft, allotting 40% more floor space. This was achieved by remodeling the interior by adding a mezzanine between the first and second floors and another floor, making 5 levels total. The project cost about $880,000. Additional interior images can be seen in the items of the CHC051 collection.
Years later, in 1992 upgrades were issued to the exterior granite and six years after, a major renovation occurred. The 1998 project cost $8.3 million and was completed by Robert Olson and Associates, who were tasked with updating Boylston Hall for its current inhabitants.
Dan Reiff photo. CHC files
The space was now occupied by humanities departments as part of a larger strategic plan that made a Humanities Arc from Quincy Street to the Yard. Departments included Classics, Literature, Comparative Literature, Linguistics, and Romance Languages. Robert Olson and Associates addressed many of their particular concerns, including making the windows functional to improve air quality.
Hollis image. Exterior. North Side [Ralph Lieberman photograph, 2012). Photographer: Ralph Lieberman, 2012. Image ID: olvsurrogate991681
Hollis image. Interior view of lecture hall (2013). Photographer: Ralph Lieberman, 2013. Image ID: olvsurrogate1032227
Hollis image. Interior view of reading room (2013). Photographer: Ralph Lieberman, 2013. Image ID: olvsurrogate1032221
The firm also achieved brighter, more open corridors by installing glass partitions. One of the most notable themes of the renovation was the emphasis on social spaces. Boylston Hall now sported a mezzanine cafeteria (C’est Bon cafe), common spaces and meeting rooms (Ticknor Lounge), and a 144 seat stadium-style auditorium (Fong Auditorium).
On the first floor, two prior large classrooms were split into three more usable classroom sizes. Although the redesign was applauded by most, not everyone praised the changes. News articles quoted people remarking on inferior workmanship and the loss of office space– it seems Ebenezer Johnson and the other contracted skilled workers of the first build were greatly missed! Additionally, as we’ve moved to the twenty-first century, the glass partitions between classrooms have caused logistical problems with audiovisual equipment due to the presence of glare. Nonetheless, Boylston Hall’s exterior has retained most of its visual integrity. Today, the building still serves the Departments of Classics and Linguistics but also Women, Gender & Sexuality.
Sources:
Bunting, Bainbridge. Harvard: An Architectural History. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1985.
Cambridge Chronicle. 24 August 1895.
Eliot, Charles W. Harvard Memories.Cambridge, 1923.
Henry, Stephen G. “A Brand New Boylston.” Harvard Crimson.30 October 1998.
Powell, Alvin. “Boylston Hall Gets a Facelift.” Harvard University Gazette.17 September 1998.
Shand-Tucci, Douglas. Harvard University: An Architectural Tour (The Campus Guide). Princeton Architectural Press, 2001.
Thirty-Second Annual Report of the President of Harvard College to the Overseers, Exhibiting the State of the Institution for the Academical Year 1856-1857. “Letter of Professor Cooke to Rev. James Walker. December 24, 1857.” Cambridge: Metcalf and Co, 1856.
Image from Thompson, Benjamin. “Let’s Make it Real.” Available in CHC051 Collection.
Welcome back to Torn Down Tuesday! Today’s feature is the house that once stood at 17 Frost Street in Mid Cambridge. Known as the Ward-Lovell house, the 2½-story home was built in 1886 by Sylvester L. Ward, a Roxbury oil merchant, for his daughter Mary when she married Frederick Lovell, a North Cambridge grocer.
17 Frost Street, CHC survey photo (1965)
The house was designed by architectural firm Rand and Taylor in the Queen Anne Style. In contrast to East Cambridge, where the buildings of the nineteenth century had to be crowded between and behind older structures, there was room in Mid Cambridge for large buildings and for new streets and subdivisions. Sixty percent of the area’s houses were built after 1873. While there are larger and more important Queen Anne houses in other parts of Cambridge, nowhere in the city is there such a range in scale and importance, in type and development, as in Mid Cambridge.
17 Frost Street, B. Orr photograph (ca. 1967)
As described in the CHC’s Survey of Architectural History in Cambridge, Vol. 2: Mid Cambridge, “The most exuberant manifestations of Queen Anne style were dying down by the end of the 1880’s, and in the last decade of the nineteenth century two trends appeared. One, the shingle style, with its continuous surfaces and curvilinear shapes, had originated a decade earlier in the work of H. H. Richardson and other architects but made its first appearance in Mid Cambridge at this time.” A late shingle style house, 17 Frost exhibits a continuous surface of shingles sweeps lightly over the house, and the shapes melt into each other, emphasizing the generous ornament on the porch gable.
Detail of 1930 Cambridge Bromley Atlas
By 1906, the home was owned by Ferdinand Schuyler Mathews (1854-1938), artist and author of several field books describing the flowers, trees, and wildlife of the eastern United States.
Familiar Flowers of Field and Garden by F. Schuyler Mathews, biblio.com (1897 edition)
In 1913, the Cambridge Tribune described Schuyler as follows:
“…the artist, is equally well known as an ornithologist, although he insists that the latter study is merely a hobby. Mr. Mathews, however, has become an authority on birds and their music. His stories of the feathered tribe and his imitations of their notes are always a source of much delight to his hearers. He interprets the bird’s songs and is responsible for the assertion that the oriole is a first-rate ragtime whistler.–Globe”
For decades, Mathews worked to transpose bird songs into notes, and published his work in a guide titled Field Book of Wild Birds and Their Music, A Description of the Character and Music of Birds, Intended to Assist in the Identification of Species Common in the United States East of the Rocky Mountains (1904; expanded and reprinted in 1921). Ferdinand was not the only person in his family pursuing the sciences. After receiving her A.B. from Radcliffe in 1912, Mathews’s daughter, Genevieve, worked at the Harvard College Observatory as a computer where she studied new and variable stars.
Harvard University Archives: Harvard College Observatory. [Observatory Data Analysis by Women Computers], 1890.The house remained in the Mathews family until the late 1930s, and was later purchased by Harry P. Frost, who rented out the home. Known as “Doc Frost”, he was a well-known trainer of boxers and worked with such greats as Harry Wills and Maxie Rosenbloom. In the 1940s, Frost worked for the City of Cambridge park department running a youth boxing program and trained the youths at the Rindge Field Playground. Frost’s widow, Sally, owned 17 Frost until the late 1960s. The home was demolished in November 1967 for a parking lot, and in 1988 a series of five pastel-colored houses were built on the lot. These homes stand today.
7-17 Frost Street, Google Street View (March 2016)
Never want to miss a Torn Down Tuesday or our other historical posts? Make sure to follow us here and on Instagram!
Sources: Cambridge Chronicle, 19 February 1942 Cambridge Tribune, 20 December 1913
Maycock, Susan E., and Charles Sullivan. Building Old Cambridge: Architecture and Development. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2016.
Cambridge Historical Commission, Survey of Architectural History in Cambridge, Vol. 2: Mid Cambridge. Cambridge, MA: Charles River Press, 1967.
During these trying times for our community, we are committed to helping local businesses. To do our part, every week in May we have been highlighting locally-owned small businesses right here in Cambridge! Today, we will spotlight Abroad Modern along with the history of the building in which the shop is located at 260 Concord Avenue in Northwest Cambridge.
260 Concord Ave, 4 August 1985. Photographer: Frank J. O’Reilly.
Although the storefront is closed, Abroad Modern is open for online business, and its founder is even offering free gloved-hand delivery to locals! “Modern utility sourced globally” is how owner and founder, Greer Goodman describes the products, sourced from India, offered in her shop. Goodman’s passion for her entrepreneurial goals is apparent: “…I started this business to help others, to partner with people around the globe and make space for a cultural awareness that will hopefully, in tiny but meaningful ways, make the world smaller and better.”
The history of the building from which Abroad Modern is operated is as unique as the store itself. The property, which contains 360 square feet, is a remnant of a larger property that was divided when Appleton Street was laid out the it in 1871. The ‘heater piece’ or ‘gore’ as these leftovers were known, shows up in city atlases in 1894 as the property of Francis J. O’Reilly. In 1908, O’Reilly obtained a building permit to put up a one-story wood-frame store, 8′ wide on Concord Avenue, 30′ deep along Appleton Street, 4′ wide at the back, and 14′ high.
260 Concord Ave, ca. late 1960s. CHC Survey.
The 1910 Cambridge Directory lists shoemaker Cosimo Carfagno as the occupant at 260 Concord. Carfagno operated his business from the small building until at least 1931, his last directory listing. The next directory, in 1937, lists the property as vacant and according to directories, remained so until at least 1972.
Detail of 1930 Cambridge Bromley Atlas.
The adjoining property to the east, once the house and land of ice dealer H.H. Eames, was subdivided by his heirs in about 1900 into four house lots. Andrew N. Lewis, a carpenter, built houses on each lot, including the present house at 256 Concord Avenue once owned by Boston-based contractor Garrett Lambert.
256-260 Concord Avenue, 20 August 1983. Photographer unknown.
The neighborhood lore is that this is a ‘spite’ or ‘grudge’ building. This may be a reasonable inference from the store’s proximity to 256 Concord Avenue, since one can easily imagine O’Reilly buying this otherwise useless property with the intent of selling it to the eventual abutter, but there is no documentary evidence to support this. In the absence of zoning, which was not adopted until 1926, many property owners were quick to put waste ground to any productive use, and it is equally logical that this structure was built by O’Reilly specifically for Carfagno to occupy as a shoe repair shop.
260 Concord Avenue as seen from Appleton Street, 13 August 1983. Photographer unknown.
We hope you enjoyed today’s post, and we also hope you take time to explore the small businesses in your neighborhood!
Happy Torn Down Tuesday! As a follow up to our Modern Monday Instagram post yesterday, today we are featuring the house that once stood at 280 Harvard Street in Mid-Cambridge.
280 Harvard St, ca 1965-66 (Photographer: B. Orr)
The February 19th, 1887 edition of the Cambridge Tribune stated that the home was commissioned by Mrs. Caroline Marshall, wife of Boston merchant Moses M. Marshall for their son, Moses Sylvester. The article included a detailed description of the house and it’s building materials:
The house is set slightly back from Harvard Street and the exterior is very handsome; a piazza extends around two sides with a tower at the corner. The brick chimney is outside and is decorated with terra cotta panels. The house is clapboard, with the exception of the tower, which is singled, and the roof is covered with Brownville slate. The windows are of plate glass, while the front door has stained glass. This front door is of cherry, which is the main material used for finish the other outside doors, however, being of pine, with five panels and raised mouldings. From the vestibule one enters a hall measuring 16×9. On the right of this hall is the parlor, finished in cherry, with a large bay window formed by the tower. Back of the parlor is the library, also finished in cherry, from which opens a well arranged conservatory.
Stairway, 280 Harvard St, ca 1965-66 (Photographer: B. Orr)
On the left of the ball, through an arch, one enters the reception hall, with stairs, the latter of cherry, with a find landing measuring 11×9. Back of the reception hall is the dining-room, while in the rear of the house are the kitchen and pantries. A pleasing feature of this house is that almost every room in it contains a bay window. On the second floor are five chambers, bath-rooms, cedar closer for furs, and on the third story two chambers, a store-room and large billiard room, measuring 32×23. The house will be tastefully furnished and will have elaborate mantels.
Mantelpiece, 280 Harvard St, ca 1965-66 (Photographer: B. Orr)
It will be completed about the end of March. The architect is Mr. G. J. Williams of Boston, and the builders, Messrs. Mead, Mason & Co. of Boston.
280 Harvard was the first residence in Cambridge designed by architect. G.J. Williams. This was one of Williams’s only single-family projects in the city, and is more stylized compared to his simpler multiple-occupancy dwellings at 86-88 Webster Ave or 62-68 Plymouth Street, designed the same year as 280 Harvard. However, the house’s design was echoed in others built in the following years on Harvard Street, such as those at 284 and 298.
284 Harvard St, ca. 1965-66 (Photographer: B. Orr)
298 Harvard St, ca. 1895
According to a piece highlighting Boston markets and their proprietors, Moses S. Marshall began working for his father’s meat market in 1878 at age 18 and by 1893 was a senior member of the firm. The company, Marshall and Taylor, operated from 28 North Faneuil Hall Market in Boston.
Faneuil Hall, ca. 1860s (Boston Pictorial Archive, Boston Public Library)
Moses S. Married Grace Clark on June 18, 1884 and the couple had a daughter, Dorothy Frances, on February 8, 1889. The family attended the Austin Street Unitarian Church (demolished in 1949), and Mrs. Marshall held church sewing meetings at the family residence. After a long illness, Grace Marshall died June 26, 1903 at 42 years old. Moses Sylvester Marshall died of a cerebral hemorrhage on October 24, 1909, at 49 years old. Caroline Marshall became head of the family after the death of her son, and continued to live at 280 Harvard Street with her daughter, Ella Stimson, and three granddaughters, including Dorothy.
Detail, 1888 Sanborn Atlas (mapjunction.com)
The house was later occupied by Suffragette Mabel A. Jones, and for many years was home to members of the Manning family. The house continued as a single-occupant dwelling, and for decades saw many residents come and go. The house was demolished in 1971 to make way for the 18-story apartment building that stands a 280 Harvard Street today. For more information on the current building, see our Instagram post from Monday, April 20th.
It is hard to name an architecture style more identifiable with Harvard than the Georgian style. The oldest extant buildings in Harvard Yard include Massachusetts Hall (1720), the Wadsworth House (1726) and Holden Chapel (1744), just some of a larger group of Georgian buildings constructed before the American Revolution. The Georgian style is eponymous for the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover—George I, George II, George III, and George IV—who reigned in continuous succession from 1714 to 1830. It is in this time that Harvard, the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States, created its now iconic architectural identity. By the 19th century, other buildings in various styles were designed in the Yard, from University Hall (1815) in the Federal style, to Matthews Hall (1872) a Victorian Gothic dormitory, to Sever Hall (1880) one of the greatest examples of Richardsonian Romanesque architecture in the world; Harvard would later return to the Colonial-era Georgian style. Two great and lesser-known examples are Lionel Hall and Mower Hall.
1930 Bromley map showing recently completed Lionel and Mower Halls enclosing the two small quadrangles.
Current aerial of Lionel (yellow) and Mower (blue) Halls, facing west. Holden Chapel at center.
Abbott Lawrence Lowell, Harvard University President (1909-1933) is responsible for the wide-scale revival of the Georgian style at Harvard through his massive building programs for the Harvard River Houses, dormitories in the Yard, and the new President’s House. Two of the smallest being Lionel Hall and Mower Hall.
Circa 1925 image of Mower (left) and Lionel (right) Halls during construction from Peabody Street. Courtesy of Harvard Property Information Resource Center.
Plans of Lionel Hall (identical to Mower Hall) published in Architectural Forum, Dec. 1925.
Lionel and Mower Halls were built in 1925 in the Georgian Revival style and sited to frame the Holden Chapel and enclose the western edge of the Yard. Appropriately nicknamed “The Holden Twins”, the two dormitory buildings were designed by the firm of Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch, and Abbott, who went on to design many later buildings for Harvard, including the River Houses (both the Georgian style and later Modern Houses). Both Lionel and Mower Halls were funded by a building campaign by President Lowell to expand the university and house additional students. They are constructed of red brick with stone trim. Both buildings are near-identical and rise 2 1/2 stories into a gambrel roof. Symmetrical facades and stone entries with fluted pilasters capped with Corinthian capitals over rusticated stone complete the Georgian Revival motif.
Lionel Hall quadrangle facade. Photo by Ralph Lieberman (2012).
Lionel Hall entry detail. Photo by Ralph Lieberman (2012).
Lionel Hall is named after Lionel de Jersey Harvard (class of 1915), an English descendent of John Harvard who was killed in World War I in France. Lionel was the first known relative of John Harvard to attend his namesake’s University. He descended from Thomas Harvard (1609–1637), brother of Harvard University founder John Harvard (1607–1638), who had died childless. Lionel Harvard in 1918 served as Commander of Number One Company, in the British Army and died from mortar fire in March of 1918, during the German Spring Offensive, leaving behind a widow and infant son.
Undated photo of Lionel de Jersey Harvard, Creative Commons.
Mower Hall is named in honor of Thomas G. Mower, by a gift valued over $18,000 from Miss Sarah E. Mower as a memorial to her late father. Thomas Gardner Mower (1790-1853) graduated from Harvard College in 1810 and immediately began to study medicine, later enlisting in the army as a surgeon in the War of 1812. After the war, Mower settled in New York and became a head Surgeon and examiner for the US Army until his death.
While these two modest dormitories do not stand out for their size nor architectural grandeur among the iconic buildings in Harvard Yard, they together showcase how proper design, massing and siting can truly enhance the character of an area without diminishing the significance of nearby buildings.
Massachusetts State Senator Zebina Lee Raymond (1804-1872), State Library of Massachusetts
Happy Torn Down Tuesday! Today we are featuring the two-story home that once stood at 8 Dana Street on the corner of Centre Street. Built in 1848, this elaborately ornate Italiante-style home was commissioned by the Honorable Zebina L. Raymond, a Senator and Mayor of Cambridge.
Clipping describing Raymond’s house, Cambridge Chronicle (1 June 1848)
The house and land was purchased by Henry B. Ward in 1856 who in turn sold the house to merchant John S. Paine two years later. Paine’s Furniture Company was once the largest business of its kind in New England.
Advertisement for Paine’s, Cambridge Chronicle (7 June 1884)
Paine executed many renovations in the home including new window treatments, gas fixtures, chandeliers, and carpets. The house was again renovated in 1891 when Paine contracted Wellington Fillmore to build a one-story addition.
Photograph of 8 Dana St taken by Denys Peter Myers, Jr. or Richard Ruggles (1937)
The home was described in Survey of Architectural History in Cambridge Vol. 2: Mid Cambridge as follows:
Although the gable ends of 8 Dana Street have cornices carried across to form pediments in the Greek Revival manner, the rest of the detail is Italiante. The house is pictorial in effect, with much of its quality depending on the play of light and shadow across the wall surfaces and under the arcaded porches. (p. 53)
Window details photographed by B. Orr (winter, 1965-66)
In 1911, owner Sterling F. Hayward contracted the well-known Cambridge architect John A. Hasty to complete alterations in the sum of $3,000–nearly $80,000 in today’s money. Hasty is also responsible for designing the Cambridge Mutual Fire Insurance building and “The University” apartments–both on Massachusetts Avenue.
8 Dana St, photographed by Ed James (ca. 1947)
In the 1920s, the building was purchased by Mary M. Collins and converted into multi-occupant housing catering to students and short-term tenants. The building was named Vernon Hall and offered dining options in addition to accommodation.
Ad for Vernon Hall, Cambridge Tribune (19 December 1925)
By the mid 1940s, the building was in use as a convalescent home and later classified as nursing/rest home. The house at 8 Dana St was demolished in 1975 to make way for an addition of that complex, now known as the Cambridge Rehabilitation and Nursing Center.
Detail of Hopkins Atlas showing location of 8 Dana St (1886)
A True Copy of a Plan of the “Summer House Lot” in Cambridge Belonging to Harvard College Made by Alex. Wadsworth, Surveyor. 26 Dec 1842.
In 1849, Daniel Treadwell purchased from Harvard College a section of land from what was then known as the summerhouse lots. Treadwell married Adeline Lincoln of Hingham in 1831 and in 1834 was appointed Rumford Professor and Lecturer on the Application of Science to the Useful Arts at Harvard.
Daniel Treadwell (1791-1872) painted by E. A. Blood (1874), Harvard University Portrait Collection, Bequest of Miss Martha Elizabeth Driver to Harvard University.
Three years later, Professor Treadwell supervised the construction of Gore Hall (now demolished) to house the Harvard Library and devised a method of heating that building.
Gore Hall, ca. 1915
Treadwell was best known as an inventor, first manufacturing wooden screws. He later devised improvements to the printing press and was the first in the United States to produce the a sheet of paper printed by machine rather than by hand.
Page from Memoir of Daniel Treadwell, illustrating Treadwell’s process on improving the printing press.
Treadwell’s travels to England in 1835 may have influenced his choice of the Regency style for his first home, built by William Saunders in 1838. This building still stands, though it was moved from 48 Quincy Street to 21 Kirkland Street, and is now the Harvard Sparks house.
Sparks House (December 1964)
Treadwell sold this house in 1847, and in 1849 hired Saunders again to build the house at 29 Concord Avenue. Treadwell had purchased The following is a selection taken from Susan Maycock and Charles Sullivan’s Building Old Cambridge (2016)
A few houses built in Old Cambridge during the 1830s and ’40s followed a form of the Classical Revival style that was related to the English Regency period of the early 1800s. These flush-boarded houses had cube-like massing, low hip roofs, and broad pilasters without capitals repeated across the facade. The conservative, academic style was found primarily in the Boston area but also occasionally along the Maine coast…The earliest Cambridge example is the house that William Saunders built for Daniel Treadwell in 1838.
29 Concord Ave photographed by D. Bradford Wetherell, Jr. (1953)
Treadwell lived in the house until his death in 1872, and it was then occupied by Judge Horatio G. Parker and later owned by George H. Abbott, who made significant renovations to the property, including a pitch roof, addition of a billiard parlor on the east side and new interior finishes. Various other occupants lived in the house until it was demolished in 1959 to make way for the Continental Terrace apartments. For more information on this new building, check out our Modern Monday post from January 27th!
Sources
Susan E. Maycock and Charles M. Sullivan, Building Old Cambridge: Architecture and
Development (MIT Press, 2016)
CHC biographical files
CHC survey files
Wyman, Morrill. “Memoirs of Daniel Treadwell.” In Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, XI:334–35. Cambridge, Mass: John Wilson and Son, 1888.
Constructed in 1960 and designed by Hugh Stubbins & Associates, Inc., Continental Terrace at 29 Concord Avenue is an apartment building that maximized space while providing natural light throughout. The 8-story brick building consists of 103 apartments and features distinctive white balconies for every unit.
View of Continental Terrace with central front entrance descending below grade. City of Cambridge.
The design encompassed 81,690 square feet organized around a galleried central well. Stubbins was able to add an 8th floor by dropping the ground floor a half level below the sidewalk, providing more units while staying under the 65-foot height limit as measured from the sidewalk. The building has a single loaded system and one elevator which opens out onto a light-filled atrium furnished with couches. Since the building is single loaded, each corridor is adjacent to the open atrium, making the space feel larger and more pleasant. Stubbins provided residents with access to daylight from most parts of the building.
Architect’s rendering of 29 Concord Avenue. Francis Loeb Library, Harvard Graduate Design School.
The design of the lobby and the single elevator fostered interaction among neighbors creating a sense of community. Since the building was designed a half story below grade, to reach the vestibule one descends between two garden terraces into what feels like a private area, deterring strangers from wandering inside. This is also the location of the mailboxes, and according to one former resident people often linger there to check mail, further contributing a sense of security. Residents were also known to spend time in the lobby which has views of the upper corridors.
Article in Architectural Forum showing floor plans as well as a view of the atrium from above. Architectural Forum, June 1961.View of atrium in Architectural Forum, June 1961.Architect’s first floor plan illustrating the lobby and arrangement of units with patio/gardens. Francis Loeb Library, Harvard Graduate Design School.
In the apartments, the living room receives natural light from a floor to ceiling, wall-to-wall window while the bedroom has one narrow tall window. The interior layout is very open, and spaces flow easily with minimal doors and walls, but does reduce opportunities for privacy. Each unit has a private balcony which also makes the unit feel larger. Basement level apartments also have gardens.
Article in Architectural Forum with photographs of interior units. Architectural Forum, June 1961.
Architect: Hugh Stubbins & Associates, Inc. Landscape Architect: John L. Wacker. Structural Engineer: Goldberg & LeMessurier. Mechanical Engineer: Delbrook Engineering, Inc. Electrical Engineer: Fred S. Dubin Associates. Acoustical Consultant: Bolt, Beranek & Newman. Contractor: John F. Griffin Co.
Sources
Pierson, Caroline (former resident), “Why Design Matters: The Effect of Architecture on Living Experience.” March 2010.
“Apartments Around a Well,” Architectural Forum, June 1961.
The Willard Phillips House formerly at 58 Linnaean Street was constructed in 1841 in the then fashionable Gothic Revival architectural style. Willard Phillips was born in 1784 in Bridgewater, MA and graduated Harvard University in 1810. After graduating, Phillips studied law and by 1826, was a member of the legislature and during this time, he was an editor of multiple law review journals which were distributed all over the country. By 1839, he was made judge of probate for Suffolk County and built his home shortly after in Cambridge. He retired from legal practice in 1845 to become the president of the New England Mutual Life Insurance Company, where he remained until 1865 when he retired.
Circa 1930 image of the Willard Phillips House (58 Linnaean Street) courtesy of HOLLIS Images.
After his death, the property remained in the Phillips family who rented the home to Professor John Trowbridge, who was the Director of the Jefferson Physical Laboratory at Harvard. By 1900, 58 Linnaean Street, land which extended from Linnaean Street to Shepard Street and all buildings thereon were conveyed to Radcliffe College, who also purchased the land of Dr. Bemis next door to develop what is known now as the Radcliffe Quad.
1873 Hopkins Map
1916 Bromley Map
Current Condition Map
The Phillips House became known as the Trowbridge House, a dormitory for students at Radcliffe while the larger brick dormitories along Shepard Street were being constructed. As the Radcliffe Quad developed into the 1920s, open space became a challenge, and many wood-frame dwellings and outbuildings were demolished or moved. The Phillips House eventually was razed in 1951 for Holmes Hall, a wing of Moors Hall.
Detail of Phillips House and barn at rear, undated photo in CHC Archives.
The original Gothic style barn as part of the Phillips estate was moved in 1926 to the rear of 61 Garden Street and redesigned by Mary Almy, a Radcliffe Graduate and principal architect of the firm of Howe, Manning & Almy which was started in 1900 by Lois Lilley Howe. Radcliffe hired the firm to convert the former barn structure into a field house for athletics on the Radcliffe Quad.
Photograph of Phillips Estate barn at second location behind 61 Garden Street. Image part of MIT Special Collections. Circa 1926.Photograph of Phillips Estate barn at second location behind 61 Garden Street. Image part of MIT Special Collections. Circa 1926.Location of former Phillips estate barn after renovation to Radcliffe Field House behind 61 Garden Street (Edmands House, dormitory). 1950s Sanborn Map.
The Field House was redesigned in the Colonial Revival style and was nearly indistinguishable from the former barn besides the bargeboards at the side gable of the roof which were retained to showcase the history of the structure.
1968 Photo of Radcliffe Field House taken by CHC.
Ca. 1930s view of Radcliffe Field House, courtesy of HOLLIS Images.
Ca. 1930s view of Radcliffe Field House, courtesy of HOLLIS Images.
Plans and documents which are in the Howe, Manning & Almy Special Collection at the MIT Special Archives showcase the drawings and floor plans of the space even down to the large wooden beam at the mantle on the interior which reads “In Memory of Rosamond Claire Esty 1925”. Ms. Esty, 22, was a recent Radcliffe graduate who was swept from a ledge in Rockport by rogue waves in and despite her brothers attempts to save her, died in the surf.
1930s interior of Radcliffe Field House and carved wooden mantle reading “In Memory of Rosamond Claire Esty 1925”.
Photo of Radcliffe Field House proposed front elevation, original at MIT Libraries.
Photo of Radcliffe Field House proposed first floor plan, original at MIT Libraries.
Photo of Radcliffe Field House proposed second floor plan, original at MIT Libraries.
The Field House was a success and saw heavy use until the 1960s when the building became known by the College as a “necking hangout”. Radcliffe allowed its female students to study in the Field House with a male companion until midnight by requiring students to sign out a key held at nearby Holmes Hall; this made the Field House the only building at Radcliffe legally available to Radcliffe students and their dates every night. Articles explained that the key was often signed out under assumed names and would go missing and unauthorized duplicates later would proliferate through the Quad.
Radcliffe and Harvard Students posing at recently completed Radcliffe Field House, ca. 1930. Image courtesy of HOLLIS Images.
The Field House was razed by 1970 for the construction of the Currier House.
