Crowninshield House

The Crowninshield House is a historic house at 164 Marlborough Street in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. Built in 1870, it is the first residential design of the renowned architect Henry Hobson Richardson. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.

Crowninshield House
Location164 Marlborough St., Boston, Massachusetts
Coordinates42°21′9″N 71°4′45″W
Built1870
ArchitectHenry Hobson Richardson
Architectural styleOther, Romanesque
Part ofBack Bay Historic District (ID73001948)
NRHP reference No.72000145[1]
Significant dates
Added to NRHPFebruary 23, 1972
Designated CPAugust 14, 1973

Architecture and history

The Crowninshield House stands at the southwest corner of Marlborough and Dartmouth Street. It is a four-story brick building, featuring a variety of trim in black brick, brownstone, and decorative green and blue tiles. It has a mansard roof, and a projecting two-story entrance section at the center of the main facade. The entry is flanked by sidelight windows and sheltered by a semicircular wrought iron hood.[2]

Commissioned by Benjamin W. Crowninshield, the house was designed in 1868 and built in 1870 by H.H. Richardson. It is the earliest surviving example of Richardson's private residence work. Unlike many of his later works in the signature Romanesque style that he would develop, this house owes more to the Second Empire style. The house is, along with the former Trinity Rectory, one of two surviving Richardson houses in Boston.[2]

Benjamin Crowninshield

Benjamin William Crowninshield (1837–1892)[3] was a member of the Boston Brahmin Crowninshield family. He attended Harvard College, graduating in 1858, along with classmates H.H. Richardson and Henry Adams. Adams' Education of Henry Adams (1918) includes descriptions of his friendship with Crowninshield.[4]

Crowninshield studied history, publishing and speaking on various topics, such as yachting[5] and military history. Published works include A History of the First Regiment of Massachusetts Cavalry Volunteers (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1891).

In 1868, Crowninshield commissioned his friend Richardson to design and build the house on Marlborough Street in the newly land-filled Back Bay area of Boston.[6]

See also
  • National Register of Historic Places listings in northern Boston, Massachusetts

References
  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. April 15, 2008.
  2. "NRHP nomination for Crowninshield House". National Archive. Retrieved 2017-11-16.
  3. http://www.worldcat.org/wcidentities/lccn-n88-674263
  4. Henry Adams. Education of Henry Adams.
  5. Yacht Luxury. Boston Daily Globe. Jul 28, 1889. p.19.
  6. James F. O'Gorman. Living architecture: a biography of H.H. Richardson. Simon and Schuster, 1997.
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