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Program in New EnglandStudies, June 2012 by Bob Frishman

Is this, finally, the end of Colonial Revival? Is thelongest-running, most pervasive style of Ameri-can architecture and furniture design coming to

the close of its nearly two-century run?On the final morning of Historic New England’s

(HNE) annual six-day Program in New EnglandStudies (PINES), this provocative question wasraised by Gerald W.R. Ward, a curator at the Muse-um of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), in the garden cot-tage of HNE’s circa 1785 Hamilton House in SouthBerwick, Maine. Heremarked that the idea hadjust occurred to him at break-fast, but it made an ironicpostscript to a week spentstudying historic homes and furniture collectionswithin 100 miles of the Boston Tea Party.

As primarily a restorer and dealer of antiqueclocks, I enlisted in this program for a greaterunderstanding of the surrounding styles and cul-tures of the timekeepers I service. Among the other23 participants were old-house owners, interiordesigners, auctioneers of antiques, historians, muse-um professionals, and a graduate student whoreceived one of three program scholarships.

Our itinerary began on June 18 at HNE’s OtisHouse headquarters in Boston and concluded attheir Beauport mansion in Gloucester on June 23,advancing chronologically from the mid-17th cen-tury to the beginning of the 20th. Each day featuredlectures by renowned experts as well as bus travel toperiod homes and the MFA.

On that Monday, June 18, we were welcomed byKenneth Turino, HNE’s manager of communityengagement and exhibitions, who administers theintensive program. He and Joanne Flaherty, exhibi-tions coordinator (and “cruise director”), were ourefficient handlers throughout the week. Ken report-ed that Historic New England, founded in 1910 byWilliam Sumner Appleton (1874-1947), is a pri-mary specialist of New England material culture.HNE owns 36 properties in five New Englandstates, more than 110,000 relevant objects, andmore than one million ephemera items in itsarchives and library. Carl Nold, HNE president andCEO, also spoke, saying that these objects are notthe most beautiful or costly, but each is a piece ofNew England’s heritage.

Our first speaker, Cary Carson, is retired from theColonial Williamsburg Foundation. His focus on“How Colonial New England Became Britain’sPottery Barn” (his talk’s title) challenged the sup-ply-side notion that a flood of inexpensive con-sumer goods fueled economic expansion. He sug-gested instead that public demand, driven by a “pas-sion to purchase,” encouraged manufacturers toinvest in new technologies to meet the new need.This demand arose not just from increased prosper-ity, but because in a more mobile society, markersother than traditional class and landownership wereneeded to indicate a person’s social position. Por-traits, buckles, mirrors, chests of drawers, alongwith good manners, all identified one’s place incommunities that were founded only years, not cen-turies, before.

Robert Blair St. George, history professor at the

University of Pennsylvania, was next. He describedthe transfer of architectural forms from England toColonial New England, showing details of howearly settlers brought various building styles fromtheir British counties of origin. Nearly all of thesestructures were demolished by the 1850’s. A smallnumber remain, mostly the better two-story homes,which were finer than the majority of cruder, small-er single-story dwellings.

Our coach brought us to an outdoor lunch at theSpencer-Peirce-Little Farmin Newbury, Massachusetts,(where recently I had viewedbaseball played in period uni-forms according to 1861

rules). Two nearby HNE properties were our ulti-mate destination. At the 1678 Coffin House and thecirca 1670 Swett-Ilsley House, we found AbbottLowell Cummings, the former HNE director andoriginator of an earlier version of PINES some 30years ago.

Cummings, joined by Cary Carson, guided usthrough the homes, noting their construction, addi-tions, East Anglian precedents, large multi-purposerooms, and earliest known Boston wallpaper, circa1780. Cummings suggested that the upstairs cham-ber in the second house is the best “teaching room”he knows, especially for showing what he termedthe “building logic” of the time.

Ken Turino was our speaker following thatevening’s reception back at the Otis House. Hefocused on the serious challenges facing housemuseums. Shrinking visitation and funding requiresnew thinking beyond the “velvet rope” traditionalapproach. We heard of strategies to involve morecommunity involvement and activities and aboutongoing efforts to ensure that these propertiesendure. Different from purpose-built treasure-houseinstitutions, house museums must balance issues oftheir sites and surroundings. Many still have “toomuch stuff” from undefined collecting and devotetoo much attention to chasing short-term grants.Turino described HNE’s “stewardship” program,which now has 81 historic properties safeguardedunder private ownership but overseen by HNE.

Tuesday began in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, atHNE’s 1784 Governor John Langdon House. JamesGarvin, retired New Hampshire state architecturalhistorian, explained how the area’s timber, especial-ly eastern mountain pine, provided both exportwealth and sawn lumber for grand new homes.Despite a relatively small population, the availabil-ity of trained carvers, joiners, builders, and illustrat-ed style and pattern books made such places possi-ble. Scarce labor led to the first use of water-pow-ered sawmills, bringing down the price of boardsneeded for this construction. Wood was planed,decorated, carved, and sometimes coated to simu-late stone elements. We heard first mention of theFederal style, originating from Britain’s RobertAdam in the late 18th century.

Jane Nylander, HNE’s president emerita, talkednext about the popularization of the New Englandhome. She summarized from one of her many pub-lications, Our Own Snug Fireside (1993), abouthow the idea of the New England house, inhabited

The 1784 Governor John Langdon House in Portsmouth, New Hamp-shire. George Washington was entertained at the house in 1789 butslept elsewhere. In keeping with HNE’s policies of expanding the appealand uses of historic properties, the house is available for weddings andfunctions, and it offers temporary exhibits in its double parlor.

The 1846 Roseland Cottage in Woodstock, Connecticut, plunged us intostudy of the Victorian era. Its first owner, Henry Bowen, was a founderof the Republican Party and hosted visits by several U.S. presidents aswell as extravagant July 4th celebrations. Out back is the single-seatprivy erected for the stay of President Grant.

HNE’s 1740 Codman House in Lincoln, Massachusetts, faced demoli-tion in the mid-19th century but was saved after public outcry over the1863 razing of John Hancock’s 1737 Boston mansion.

PINES participants arrived at Historic New England’s Coffin House,Newbury, Massachusetts. Our guide described it as one of the earlierand better 17th-century dwellings that remain standing, even with its18th-century front addition.

A hatch in the Coffin House exterior has beenraised to show features of wall construction. Thisis an example of HNE’s efforts, beyond restora-tion and caretaking, to enhance understandingof the historic homes under its care.

Gerry Ward, shown gesturing at the lower right, saidthat this sometimes is called the “IKEA” or “HomeDepot” display of period furniture in the AmeliaPeabody Gallery of the MFA, Boston.

Is this, finally, the endof Colonial Revival?

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Abbott Cummings stated that the Swett-IlsleyHouse boasts the largest fireplace opening in NewEngland, shown here containing two of our group.It features three ovens built into its brick back wall.Such ovens later were placed into hearth front wallsinstead, greatly reducing the fire risk to housewivespeering into them.

Richard Candee, author of the 1996book Building Portsmouth: The Neigh-borhoods & Architecture of New Hamp-shire’s Oldest City, guided us throughthe Warner House. Thousands ofceramic shards, mostly fragments ofhigh-end Chinese porcelain, werefound buried on the grounds anddemonstrate the family’s early wealth.

Brock Jobe grouped chairs, tables, and highchests at HNE’s Haverhill, Massachusetts,storage and study center. Because he knewthat Michael Grogan, an antiques auction-eer based in Dedham, Massachusetts, was inour group, he asked us all to pretend to beauctioneers called to an imposing oldBoston home to assess antique possessions,with the HNE pieces as our test cases. Testresults, even using the latest tablet comput-er seen in this photo, revealed that we allneeded further training.

by sturdy self-reliant folks capa-ble of resisting the rigors of localwinters, became so influential.These homes, often good cus-tomers for manufactured textilesand ceramics from England,were romantically portrayed inCurrier & Ives scenes and otherprints, and are pervasive ideal-izations of how we lived.

After a tour and lunch at theLangdon House, we walked tothe circa 1716 Warner House(not an HNE property) and weremet by Richard Candee, aBoston University emeritus pro-fessor. This large brick structureis the earliest high-style Englishhome left in New England,although there were dozens,principally in Boston, built byprosperous merchants. Not onlydo the original builder’s invoicesremain, there are also two earlyinventories of house contentsalong with 20,000 shards fromthe grounds, providing raredetails of its history. Slowly, thehouse furnishings from thoseearly lists are returning fromfamily descendents. Unique fea-tures include a lightning rod,probably installed by BenjaminFranklin, bedroom walls treatedwith smalt (ground cobalt glassproviding a deep blue color treat-ment), and a 1733 Queen Anneinlaid chest with proven familyprovenance.

Nearby Maine was our nextstop. The 1760 Lady PepperellHouse is an HNE deaccessionedproperty, privately owned andmaintained since 1985. The own-ers gladly submit to HNE over-sight and occasional visitinggroups. Joseph Cornish, HNE’ssenior stewardship manager,pointed out its high-style Geor-gian features. A reception at theold Portsmouth home of Janeand Richard Nylander topped offthis day.

Wednesday, again at OtisHouse, we heard from BrockJobe, professor of decorative artsat Winterthur. Referencing thestyle and pattern books availableto craftsmen and consumers of18th-century American furniture,he led us through details of carv-ing, turning, joining, cabinet-making, inlay, veneer, and thevarious woods utilized. Brasshardware, imported from Britainand often equal in cost to the restof the piece, was initially sand-cast and was then stamped laterin the century. Cheaper iron wasused for table hinges. Upholsteryoptions were broad, from costlysilks to less expensive cotton orlinen prints to leather as the leastexpensive. London, described byJobe as the “Capital of America”in the 18th century, providedmost of the designs, but therewere Continental influences aswell, all brought by immigrantcraftsmen, travelers, and publica-tions.

Following a tour of Bulfinch-designed Otis House, we left forthree workshops at HNE’s Col-lections and Conservation Centerin Haverhill, Massachusetts, astorehouse of 50,000 objects.Brock Jobe conducted an exami-nation of high chests, tables, andchairs. First he asked us to useour own eyes to assess eachpiece. Nancy Carlisle, seniorcurator of collections, led usthrough the mysteries of ceram-ics, and Laura Johnson, associatecurator, explained textiles usedfor furnishings (not clothing)from bed linens to curtain andupholstery fabrics.

That evening’s event was apresentation in the headquarters’

Dean Lahikainen, a curator at the PeabodyEssex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, beganhis talk on the steps of the PEM’s 1804 Gard-ner-Pingree House a few steps away from themain museum building. McIntire carvingadorns the portico entry. Windows above andbeside the door send daylight into the frontfoyer.

basement archives, where weheard Lorna Condon, seniorcurator of library and archives.She assists more than 3500researchers each year and over-sees a collection envisioned byher hero, William Sumner Apple-ton, to preserve and organize allaspects of domestic New Eng-land history. The cataloged col-lections include documentaryphotography, architectural draw-ings, and eventually any material“documenting the built environ-ment.” Her most prized objectsmay be a group of 1895 largeglass negatives that captured theconstruction of Boston’s subwaysystem, the nation’s first.

On Thursday, we first had a lec-ture from J. Ritchie Garrison,director of the Winterthur Pro-gram in American Material Cul-ture at University of Delaware.Focused on the landscape andarchitecture of New England’sFederal period, he explained howgrowth in relatively small andeasily traveled states led to largersophisticated housing and com-mercial buildings. This style hada long history since “people buildwhat they see,” and they imitatecurrent building standardsconservatively. Builders became

more efficient, many house com-ponents were mass-produced,and homes could become moreaffordable or grander as a result.

Robert Mussey, an independentconservator and author based inMilton, Massachusetts, led usthrough an examination of Feder-al furniture. Boston took morethan a decade to recover from thedestruction suffered during theRevolutionary War, but thencould begin to afford to imple-ment the Federal style, whichwas Neoclassical or late-Geor-gian in old world terms. ThomasSheraton’s 1793 design book,owned by several period Bostoncraftsmen, emphasized the gov-erning principles of art, geome-try, and perspective derived fromclassical forms. Key was a reduc-tion of three-dimensional sculpt-ed and carved representationsinto two-dimensional inlays,veneers, and decorations on flatsurfaces that repeated similarmotifs. As stronger woods, joints,and techniques were employed,furniture components becamethinner and lighter, clearly evi-denced in Seymour furniture, onwhich Mussey is a foremostexpert.

Lunch at the Peabody Essex

Museum in Salem, Massachu-setts, preceded a tour of theiradjacent 1804 Gardner-PingreeHouse, led by Dean Lahikainen,curator of American decorativeart. His published specializationon the builder and carver SamuelMcIntire was ideal. One of thefirst to prepare careful drawingsand with a mastery of Neoclassi-cal proportions, McIntiredesigned this grand brick town-house and executed much of itsornate carving at a time whenSalem had the highest per-capitaincome in the country. Nearlyintact interiors contain periodfurniture including some origi-nals returned from the family.Happily for me, a Simon Willardlong-case clock stands in thehome’s keeping room, and ourgroup was allowed to enterrooms that normally are viewedonly from their doorways.

That evening, Gerry Wardpointed out prize objects in theMFA’s Americana collection.Stops at heavy Colonial carvedchests, gleaming Revere silver,colorful Copley portraits, extrav-agant 18th-century furniture, andrestored period rooms wereteasers demanding longer returnvisits.

Friday we were delivered to the1740 Codman House in Lincoln,Massachusetts. We were met byRichard Nylander, HNE curatoremeritus. During his 41 yearswith Historic New England (for-merly known as Society for thePreservation of New EnglandAntiquities, SPNEA), he spentmuch time on the history, restora-tion, and interpretation of thiscountry manor. It is a “complicat-ed” house that endured severalowners and changes. Ogden Cod-man Jr. was its best-known resi-dent. Codman worked closelywith Edith Wharton and was aprominent interior designer, butearlier and later owners mademajor changes. One of Nylan-der’s specialties is wallpaper, andin this house, as well as otherhouses he discussed, his scholar-ship on this subject was ablyapplied to the needed restora-tions. More than 100 linear feetof original paper documentationcame with the donation of thehouse in 1968, boosting itsresearch and historical value.

The coach then made a longerdrive to Woodstock, Connecticut,location of the 1846 RoselandCottage and an appropriate set-ting for our turn to Victorian

Nancy Carlisle, an HNE curator, is shownstanding in one of the first-floor dining areas ofBeauport in Gloucester, Massachusetts. LonelyPlanet has ranked Henry David Sleeper’s cre-ation among the world’s ten greatest mansions.

The gardens of Beauport were restored in 2009,and the shadow on its sundial tells the time ofmy visit. Several antique mechanical timekeep-ers also were inside. None of Sleeper’s personalrecords remain, however, to document thehouse and its contents; his brother destroyed allpapers directly after Sleeper’s death in 1934.

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Abbott Lowell Cummings, author ofmany publications including the 1979book The Framed Houses of Massachu-setts Bay, 1625-1725, points out architec-tural elements in the large upstairs cham-ber of the circa 1670 Swett-Ilsley Housein Newbury, Massachusetts. This wasHNE’s first architectural property,acquired in 1911.

Distinctive markers make HNE’s house muse-ums easy to spot. Opening days and hours can bequite limited, so should be checked in advance.

Virtuoso carving and lathe work are vis-ible throughout the Langdon House.One motif is the three styles of turnedbalustrades repeated up the main stair-case.

The 1716 Warner House in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, is not anHNE property, but as the “earliest extant brick urban mansion in NewEngland” it was an important stop for us.

Richard Nylander described the gradual enlargement ofCodman House from six to 22 rooms. HNE’s approachto the house changed from leaving it as found in 1968 toa new philosophy, begun in 1978, to “conserve andrestore” it to earlier years that better interpret thiscountry home’s significance.

style. Richard Guy Wilson, chairof the department of architecturalhistory at the University of Vir-ginia, was our leadoff speakerthere. He offered descriptionsand context of New England sin-gle-family homes, which heclaims are a nearly unique Amer-ican element compared to themost common family dwellingsof other nations. The Victorianperiod was long and evolving,and the personal taste of itsnamesake can possibly berevealed by the monarch’s home,Osborne House on the Isle ofWight, and the Albert Memorialin London’s Kensington Gar-dens. These were the times ofJohn Ruskin, the Gilded Age ofMark Twain, and the Massachu-setts architect H.H. Richardson,covering decades, which Wilsonoverlaid with his “Visual Curve”showing rising and falling designcomplexity.

Nancy Carlisle titled her talkhere “Victorian Furniture:Design Run Amok or InspiredCreativity?” Her 25 years withHNE have provided ample timeto examine the craftsmanship andmaterials of that era. While manycollectors condemn the decora-tive excesses and mass-produc-tion techniques, she pointed outthat those excesses often reflect-ed very high levels of skillfulhandwork, since power machin-ery could not yet produce deepcarving and fancy shapes. Theperiod can be subdivided intoseveral “revivals” from Gothic to

Egyptian and then to the Aesthet-ic and Arts and Craft styles thatfollowed. Debates about whetherVictorian objects are “refined” or“vulgar” can reflect subjectivecultural values that also havechanged over time.

That evening we were treatedto a reception and tour at the1902 Ayer Mansion, not usuallyopen to visitors, on Common-wealth Avenue in Boston. Jointlyowned by a nonprofit organiza-tion providing housing for col-lege women and by a branch ofthe Catholic Church, it was builtas the home of an elderly patent-medicine and textile magnate andhis younger theatrical wife.Unusual for Boston, it wasdesigned by Louis ComfortTiffany. It retains astoundingdécor with strong Byzantine andMoorish influences.

Saturday, the program’s lastday, we started at the circa 1785Hamilton House in SouthBerwick, Maine. Gerry Ward’stalk reviewed the history of theColonial Revival period, whichhe can trace possibly back to the1840’s and certainly to the 1876Centennial Exhibition inPhiladelphia. He suggested that itcould more realistically benamed “early American revival”since it covers the entire hand-craft era from 1620 to 1830 andcould be based upon a nationalneed to worship ancestors, relivea romantic “Golden Age,” bolsterpatriotism and national identity,acculturate new immigrants, and

Beauport’s terrace overlooking Gloucester Harbor offered a perfectsetting for our program’s final reception and farewells. Articles in 1916Country Life and 1929 House Beautiful magazines brought nationalattention to the mansion.

honor our origins. Often the depictions and interpretationswere not accurate, especially based on today’s research, butfrom Wallace Nutting prints to chairs made from pieces of oldspinning wheels, the idealized forms have ruled for more thana century. Collectors have sought rare Colonial pieces, andskilled fakers have often satisfied that need, as have legitimatemakers of good-quality reproductions.

Kevin D. Murphy, professor at the CUNY Graduate Centerin New York, presented our final formal lecture. Stating thatour buildings and furnishings represent history in three dimen-sions, he believes that the Colonial Revival period actuallybegan with the 1824 United States tour by Lafayette at a timewhen memory became history for the years of the Revolution-ary War. Murphy also highlighted the Centennial Exhibition’svery popular New England Kitchen exhibit, which helpedbring our region’s Colonial history into the forefront. Hepointed to many examples of architecture that reprised the oldstyles in the decades up to and beyond the book Houses forGood Living by Royal Barry Wills, first published in 1940.

Richard Nylander returned to lead our tour of HamiltonHouse. He described its Colonial Revival renovations after its1899 purchase by friends of Sarah Orne Jewett, who livednearby and located her novel The Tory Lover on that site. Per-haps most stunning are large interior wall murals painted byGeorge Porter Fernald. With illustrated articles appearingabout the house in 1929 in House Beautiful magazine, thehome again reinforced 20th-century interpretations of ourdomestic past.

Hamilton House is connected to the historic home we touredlast––Beauport, the Sleeper-McCann House in Gloucester.Henry Davis Sleeper, Beauport’s creator, visited HamiltonHouse with the artist Cecelia Beaux, and its garden cottagereportedly was an inspiration for the start of his Beauport proj-ect in 1908. Descriptions are difficult and inadequate for thisharbor-front neo-Norman collectors’ paradise. A successfuland eccentric Boston interior designer, Sleeper loaded Beau-port’s many rooms with objects artistically unified by theircolors and themes. Richard Nylander, again our guide, saidthat he never waits long for the “Oh my God” exclamations asvisitors enter each room. Our farewell champagne on Beau-port’s terrace perhaps revived the spirit of Sleeper’s own heavypartying on those same stones. (Viewers of the PBS AntiquesRoadshow 2012 Boston installment will see host Mark L. Wal-berg’s recorded Beauport visit when it airs early in 2013.)

When Abbott Lowell Cummings welcomed us in Newbury,Massachusetts, he joked that his tour would be “like throwinga little dog a big bone.” For most of us in the program, thisapplied to all six days as we attempted to gnaw on everythingwe saw and heard, and it also applies to this report. Accordingto Ken Turino, there is no other such program of study offeredin the country, and we were able to visit places not normallyopen to the public, with top experts not normally on call.

At least among our group, interest in New England domes-tic history, including the long Colonial Revival period, is farfrom dead. Gerry Ward’s musings about its demise cannot eas-ily be dismissed, however, given declining public visits andsupport for house museums and historical societies, as well asthe struggles of antiques shows, dealers, and auctions. Feweryoung people are growing up in Colonial Revival homes sur-rounded by Colonial Revival reproduction furniture; fewer ofthem study the history of this period in any depth; and fewerfind from it any entertainment or educational value.

Tellingly, Historic New England is launching a new three-day study program––“Modernist Immersion Weekend.” Formore information about all HNE programs including the June2013 PINES program, contact Ken Turino at (617) 994-5958or (www.HistoricNewEngland.org).