Right here in my neighborhood, in Cambridge, there's another house, built at about the same time, also by the architects, Hartwell and Richardson.
Joining me for a tour is Brian Pfieffer of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities.
Brian, tell us about this Avon Hill neighborhood.
When was it developed?
Mostly in the late 19th century, but the street we're on was from the 1880s.
It was farmland that had been sub-divided into lots.
That's the story usually.
And this is one of the most prominent houses on top of the hill here, isn't it?
Absolutely.
It's really great example of Queen Anne style architecture.
What makes it Queen Anne?
Well, the irregularity of the shapes.
If you look at it, you know, you've got a tower over on one side, a gable here on the front, high hip roof, bow window over there.
There's nothing symmetrical about it.
So that there are all sorts of different elements all blended together.
Absolutely.
And then a number of decorative elements which you'll see inside as well.
The shell over the window, the shell over the door.
Some of the kind of carving and decorative work that was inside and outside on buildings like this.
I tell you, what really catches my eye is the condition of that slate roof.
Not just the condition, but the the the workmanship that went into creating that.
Look at the curved slates both on the dormer there and if you look at that tower.
Can you imagine?
Each one of those slates on that tower has to be individually cut and fitted to create that fish scale pattern, doesn't it?
And there's a particularly nice detail in the copper cresting, which doesn't survive in a lot of buildings of this sort.
Now Brian, what do you suppose it cost to build this house?
Well, this house was estimated to cost 25 thousand dollars when the builder started, but it ended up costing them 50 thousand.
Amazing.
And I understand it's in incredible preservation because it has belonged to Leslie College all these years.
Having a single owner for a long time really helps preserve a building.
Okay, Well, let's take a look inside.
Sure.
It's a large hall, isn't it?
Yeah.
In its day this was one the most expensive houses built in Cambridge.
And this hallway was certainly a good part of that expense.
Well, the hallway is more than just a place to come in and take off your jacket, right?
Sure.
For a Queen Anne house like this was meant to be a kind of great living hall.
And the fireplace was going to create a warm center for life in the house.
Little Inglenook seat by the staircase was a place to sit in a cozy spot and then all this paneling and carving.
You know, yeah, what what catches your eye immediately is the condition of all this beautiful golden oak.
Quartersawn golden oak, look at all the detailing, the grain of the quartersawn oak in there.
The condition, though, it's never been painted, it's never been touched.
No, it doesn't really need, not even chipped or marred.
And I think you can see a lot of the detail, the carving is really crisp and clean.
Look up above the mantle.
Yeah, there's a pair of griffins holding on to an urn.
Yeah.
Now do you suppose that all hand carved?
I would take it to be hand carved by the way that the background is with the chisel marks and these wonderful tendrils that stand almost free, and then this undercutting here, the leaf, which you can only get through hand carving.
You can't stamp it out by machine work.
That kind of depth.
Yeah.
Look at these doors.
Do you suppose we can go in through here?
I would suspect so.
Again, everything is quartersawn oak.
Hey, they glide perfectly like the day they were put in.
What room do you suppose this was?
Built probably as a dining room.
Sure.
By the sideboard here, it would give you a good indicator of it.
Indeed, and it's not a vast room: it's maybe, sixteen by twenty.
Uh-huh.
But, what detailing again, huh?
Yeah, and very cleverly worked into the drawers of the sideboard.
Oh, these are drawers.
And you're right, see the bottom of the shell is a pull.
Excellent.
Beautiful work.
Now, what's the year of this house again?
Eighteen-Eighty-Seven.
Eighty-seven.
So, this is still not machine made.
You think this is all handmade?
A lot of houses this period would have machine made work, but the kind of expense and care put into this house, this is mostly handwork.
Yeah.
And I think it mostly shows.
Again, the chisel marks and the details of hand-working as opposed to machine stamping or casting.
Indeed and this can just be pictured as the, the built in sideboard with all the heavy silver dishes and the serving pieces.
Built for display in these little shelves provide a little extra display.
Places to put everything you need at the fancy dinner.
That's a marvelous room.
Is the whole house done in golden oak like this?
Principally, you'd find it in the first floor, in the major public rooms and then as you go up it might get simpler.
But it depends on the house .
This is really a grand staircase.
Now, it looks like the same kind of treatment that we have over in my house.
In terms of the, the three different baluster designs.
Sure, well again thinking of the the pre-classic.
These are taken from colonial revival, in the colonial revival taste or the Georgian taste from the United States.
You'd find that in houses, fancy houses of the 18th century.
They liked it, so they put it in here.
Indeed.
So it's, it's, it's a detail that, that we see in eighteen century Tory houses.
Sure.
And here a century and a half later almost, they're borrowing it and putting it back to work.
But, but using it very differently too.
To make a screen up here to create a, a way of looking through.
In a picturesque way.
A way it would never have been used in the Georgian Period.
Well, we have something similar in our place, between the second and third floor rise.
Sure.
In the screen it sort of lets you knows there's a staircase going up.
But you don't look directly into the third floor.
The stained glass behind us here.
Brought all of way up to a corner.
Is that typical?
Well, for the Queen Anne and, and that period, yes.
Because what what they've done is they've brought it as close to the corner as you possibly can.
More or less pretending the structure doesn't matter, so you can get windows right up there.
They're defying the structure, yeah.
Sure.
Now I understand that the problem with the buckling of the glass that you see here.
Is this something that occurred recently when they added glass panels or Plexiglas panels to the weather side?
That's my understanding, too.
And for conservation, it's a, it's a real lesson.
And the more you tinker with an old system with modern materials, often the more damage you do.
Indeed.
In this case, creating a little, basically a little greenhouse between the Plexiglas and the window that created those temperatures.
And that extreme heat melted the lead canes and caused the glass to.
I believe this is south facing, so it'd get a lot of sun that would really make that happen.
Well it's a spectacular house.
I wish we could spend more time here.
Thanks for the tour, Brian.
No, thank you.
