Tag Archives: Architecture

October 11, 2011

Paper Mansion

By daseger

Here is a charming image of a Salem house long gone, preserved first in paint by one of its occupants, Mary Jane Derby, and later in print: the Pickman-Derby-Brookhouse-Waters House, built in 1764, redesigned for Salem’s merchant prince Elias Hasket Derby by Samuel McIntire in the 1790s. and torn down in 1915 to make way for the imposing Masonic Temple.

The original painting, dated 1825 and in the collection of the Detroit Institute of Art, shows not only a lost building but a lost world: this is Washington Street, one of Salem’s main streets, now lined with multi-storied buildings, shops, City Hall, and cars, cars, cars. Back in 1825, not only do we see the beautiful Derby Mansion and the adjacent first-period Lewis Hunt House (demolished in 1863), but also trees, gardens, and a cantering horse. Miss Derby’s view might be a bit romantic, but it is nevertheless engaging, and the architectural detail (McIntire’s pilasters, balustrade and cupola) is there. Here is a Frank Cousins photograph of the mansion later in the nineteenth century: still looking good despite its Victorian paint job, entry bay window, and rear addition, but beginning to get crowded out. I’d love to know more about that big white statue in both the painting and the photograph: couldn’t turn up a thing.

Mary Jane Derby (1807-1892), granddaughter of Elias Hasket Derby, is generally labelled an “amateur” artist, but at the same time as she was assembling an album of Salem images for friends and family she was working with the pioneering Pendleton Lithography firm of Boston to reproduce her paintings as lithographs, including that of the Derby Mansion. Her artistic career ended with her marriage to the Unitarian pastor Ephraim Peabody, but they seem to have had a happy and productive life together, as recounted in A New England Romance: the Story of Ephraim and Mary Jane Peabody (1920), the collective memoir written by their sons Robert (founder of the Boston architectural firm Peabody & Stearns) and Francis.

The story of the mansion can be gleaned by its last photograph, published by the Detroit Publishing Company about 5 years before its demolition. It is no longer the Derby Mansion, but “Colonial House”, having lost its first-floor reception rooms, garden, and stables to urban development. It’s on a busy block, caught in a web of wires, and on its way out.

6 Comments | tags: Architecture, Art, First Period, Photography, Samuel McIntire | posted in History, Salem

October 7, 2011

Salem Staircases

By daseger

Staircases are one of the most interesting features of older homes as what could be a very utilitarian detail is often not. Given its history, Salem has tons of really interesting stairways, in both private homes and public buildings, dating from the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries. This post contains a rather random selection of some of my favorites, but certainly not all. I put in one shot of our staircase, although it’s really not all that impressive, as the original simple Federal-style railing was ripped out in the 1850s and replaced with a rather bulky (though solid mahogany) “improvement”. I didn’t want to bother all-my-Salem-friends-with-nice-staircases (because they all do) but I did bother one, as I wanted to feature one of my very favorites: look at this beautiful suspended spiral staircase unfold.

This is the amazing staircase of the Jabez Smith House, built around 1806 on upper Essex Street and now the home of my friends Dan (an architect), Betsy (an interior designer), and their two young daughters. Besides this elegant entryway, this house has a living room that extends the width of the street, with fireplaces at each end, and you can see the rest of the first floor (along with 12 other decorated historic buildings) in early December when it is featured on Historic Salem’s 32nd Annual Christmas in Salem tour.

Below is another spiral staircase, in the Saltonstall-Saunders House on Chestnut Street. The next succession of photographs were all taken by Mary Harrod Northend (1850-1926), the Salem-born photographer, author, and Colonial Revival aficionado, a colleague and contemporary of Wallace Nutting and Frank Cousins. The first photograph is from her 1911 book Colonial Homes and their Furnishings and the rest are from Historic Homes of New England (1914). After the Saltonstall staircase, there is a rather grainy photograph of the staircase in Samuel McIntire’s Cook-Oliver House, also built in the first decade of the nineteenth century, and the staircases of the seventeenth-century Pickering House and two eighteenth-century houses (left is an unidentified Norman Street house, right is the John Derby Mansion of Washington Street–neither survive).

You can see that the owners of the Cook-Oliver House have simply draped a hall runner on their stairs, which strikes me as a great example of “Yankee thrift”. Another example, which I have seen on many second-floor Salem stairs, is provided by these upper stairs in another McIntire building, the Peirce-Nichols House (1782 and after 1801). Painting a runner on the upper staircase to mimic an expensive carpet runner on the first is a neat trick, and as you can see below, I did the same thing on my second-to-third-floor stairway and saved quite a bit of money in the process.

Peirce-Nichols Second-floor Stairway. Photograph courtesy of Jim Steinhart, 2011

Two last photographs of more of my favorite Salem staircases: a HABS shot of the elegant central stairway in the Joshua Ward House (1784-88) from the Library of Congress, and the front hall of the Brookhouse Home for Aged Women, with an interesting lattice detail on its stairs.

6 Comments | tags: Architecture, design, great houses, Home, Interiors | posted in Houses, Salem

October 5, 2011

UnGuarded

By daseger

One more post on Salem’s Winter Island, where (in addition to Fort Pickering) there are two historical resources that have long been the focus of discussion and concern: the former Coast Guard seaplane hangar and barracks/administration building, shown in “then (1938) and now” photographs below.

As you can see, these building have deteriorated dramatically following the closure of Air Station Salem in 1970. Still, the new master plan for Winter Island proposes their rehabilitation and adaptive reuse. I hope I am wrong, but it looks like it’s a little late for the Barracks Building, but a template for what could happen with the hangar is provided by the redevelopment of its twin in Miami. The hangar at the former Coast Guard Air Station Miami at Dinner Key, built in the same year (1935) as the Salem hangar with identical plans, has been transformed into an adaptive aquatic center by the Shake-a-Leg Foundation in cooperation with the City of Miami. One possibility for a site with lots of potential.

Musters in Salem and Miami, from the Coast Guard Historian’s Office. The Shake-a-Leg Aquatic Center in Miami with its rehabilitated hangar.

Another possibility, perhaps even more attractive as it involves year-round use, would be to convert the hangar into an indoor recreational facility. The best example I could find of a pre-World War II hangar turned into a sports arena was in Seattle, where a private company transformed the historic Sand Point Seaplane Hangar #27 (built in 1938) into a sports club. I think that the terms of the conveyance of the Winter Island site from the Federal government to the city of Salem would mandate a public venture, but hangars do seem to be well-suited to this particular use.

The former Sand Point Naval Air Hangar #27 in Seattle and the present Arena Sports Magnuson. Architectural Design by Clark Design Group, Seattle.

1 Comment | tags: Architecture, Historic Preservation, urban planning | posted in History, Salem

September 30, 2011

A Secretive Salem House

By daseger

There is an old abandoned house in Salem situated alongside the Old Burying Point on Charter Street which almost seems like it is part of the graveyard. This is the so-called “Grimshawe House”, named for a posthumously-published story by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Dr. Grimshawe’s Secret. The Hawthorne connection to the house began in the 1830s, as it was then presumably a lively place as the residence of Dr. Peabody and his three daughters, Elizabeth, Mary, and Sophia–Nathaniel’s future wife. And so it also became known, in the words of several popular early twentieth-century postcards, as “Hawthorne’s Courting House”. Given its abandonment and present state of disrepair (as well as its site), I think that the romantic associations of the house are now largely forgotten; every time I pass by I see tourists having their pictures taken in front of what they perceive as a ghostly, perhaps haunted house.

And who can blame them? This is the characterization that Hawthorne gives the house in both Dr. Grimshawe’s Secret, and another unfinished work which was also published after his death (against his stated wishes, apparently), The Dolliver Romance. Both stories feature old eccentric doctors rattling around in their gloomy house by the graveyard. The narrator of Dr. Grimshawe observes that “….the old house itself, covering ground which else had been sown thickly with buried bodies, partook of [the graveyard’s] dreariness, because it seemed hardly possible that the dead people should not get up out of their graves and steal in to warm themselves at this convenient fireside.” Of course, the dead people to which Hawthorne is referring to are his own Hathorne relatives, resting out there while he courted his future wife in the front parlor. What a small world he lived in; no wonder he often seemed desperate to get out of Salem.

The House today (or yesterday):

The House a century ago: a 1906 photograph published by the Detroit Publishing Company, and a pair of postcards from 1911 and 1923:

A Frank Cousins photograph of the doorway of the Grimshawe House, circa 1891, and the present doorway.

This house has been in this state for as long as I’ve lived in Salem, and I have no idea what the future holds for it, although (apart from the graveyard) its general neighborhood has improved quite a bit in the last decade or so, with the transformation of the old Police Station across the street into condominiums and the addition of the Peabody Essex Museum‘s eighteenth-century house, Yin Yu Tang.

Addendum: SPIDERS play a big role in Dr. Grimshawe’s Secret, as evidenced by this title page illustration from the 1883 edition, below. I really like the image, and I couldn’t help comparing it to the Halloween decorations (already! It is Salem, after all) on a house several streets over from the Grimshawe House.

15 Comments | tags: Architecture, Culture, ephemera, Frank Cousins, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Photography | posted in History, Salem

September 29, 2011

Elephant and Key

By daseger

I came across this receipt for the obsolete Asiatic National Bank of Salem (1824-about 1910) and was immediately enchanted: an elephant holding a key, my two favorite images, together.

A great clipping, but what to do with it? I thought I might try to transform it into fabric via Spoonflower, but the fact that it’s a seal, featuring words and letters, makes it a bit too official/souvenir-looking for a fabric, I think. Still, it’s always fun to play around with that site, so it took me a while to reach that conclusion.

I also found a check (for three cents!) and a banknote (for three dollars), from back in the day (in this case 1864) when currency could be issued by private banks. As you can see the elephant, ever the symbol of the exotic east, is featured prominently (but no key).

From this bill, it is obvious that the bank’s office was in the East India Marine Hall, before it became the Peabody Museum (and the present-day Peabody Essex Museum). I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked by this building and failed to notice the “Asiatic Bank” inscription on the front. A 1933 HABS photograph of the Marine Hall from the Library of Congress is below, as well as one of its facade, taken yesterday.

2 Comments | tags: Architecture, design, ephemera | posted in History, Salem

September 21, 2011

It Takes a Village

By daseger

The Salem witchcraft hysteria began in the outlying settlements of Salem “town”, or present-day Salem, in Salem Farms and Salem Village (West Peabody and Danvers). Both areas are quite developed now, given their proximity to Routes 1 and 95, but you can still sense the presence of the past if you look hard enough. A short walk along Centre Street in that part of Danvers which was once Salem Village is a particularly accessible way to go back in time and place, and see some lovely old houses in the process.

The town of Danvers decided long ago that, unlike Salem, it did not want to be “Witch City”, so many of its witch trial-related sites are literally off the beaten path. The best example is arguably the most important site related to the witch trials, the excavated foundation of the Reverend Samuel Parris’s parsonage, where the girls began telling their stories. There is a sign on Centre Street that will lead you to this site, but inevitably it is covered by snow or leaves. If you can find the sign, you turn off the street onto a little cart path that takes you to the parsonage site.

An 1891 Frank Cousins photograph of un-excavated Parsonage Site

Back on Centre Street, you’re in the midst of several seventeenth-century houses that stood witness to the events of 1692, or, as in the case of the Ingersoll “Ordinary” (Tavern) at the corner of Hobart Street, actually hosted them. The Ingersoll house was the site of examinations and deliberations, along with the Salem Village Meeting House down the street (no longer standing), before the whole matter was moved to Salem Town. Now it’s a private house that is for sale—for what strikes me as the rather low price of $366,000. Exterior and interior views are below.

And here are four more seventeenth-century houses in the vicinity: a large house with a very impressive wood-shingled roof, just across from the Salem Village Witchcraft Victims’ Memorial on Hobart Street about which I know nothing, several Centre Street houses belonging to the prominent Holten family of Salem Village, and the Thomas Haines House (1681). In these last two houses lived influential witnesses against Rebecca Nurse and Elizabeth How, sisters-in-law and two of the victims of 1692.

A Frank Cousins photograph of the Judge Samuel Holten House in 1891

Addendum: A photograph of the absolutely delightful doubly privy beside the Judge Samuel Holten House, taken by photographer Arthur C. Haskell for the Historic American Buildings Survey in 1936 (Library of Congress).

6 Comments | tags: Architecture, Interiors, Witch Trials | posted in History, Salem

September 18, 2011

End-of-Summer Gardens

By daseger

I love muted tones in gardens anyway, so late summer gardens are just my thing. Here are some photographs of two very different gardens: my own humble garden and those of Glen Magna Farms in Danvers, the summer home of Salem’s Derby Family. I was in this part of Danvers (originally called Salem Village) yesterday, getting some images for upcoming posts on the Witch Trials (beware: next week is a very important week in the history of the Trials), and so I took a detour to Glen Magna. Though the property came into the Derby family in 1812, the estate as it exists today is largely the vision of Ellen Peabody Endicott, a Derby descendant who significantly expanded and redesigned the house and its gardens after 1892. Her grandson moved Samuel McIntire’s magnificent summer house (1793) from Salem to Danvers in 1901.

My garden: including a close-up of a squirrel (I think it’s the same one) who climbs up and down a dogwood tree all day long knocking off and burying its red berries.

And now for the magnificent Glen Magna: the house, Mrs. Endicott by John Singer Sargent (1901), McIntire’s summer house, and surrounding gardens.

Ellen Peabody Endicott by John Singer Sargent, 1901

Second Floor Interior of Derby Summer House, HABS, Library of Congress, 1960

4 Comments | tags: Architecture, Garden, John Singer Sargent, Library of Congress, Samuel McIntire | posted in History, Houses, Salem

September 9, 2011

An Abandoned House

By daseger

I find old abandoned houses captivating, and there is one in Salem that is particularly so. The 1807 house off Federal Street has so much going for it: its size, scale, and elegant transitional stature, its generous lot, its location, on a shady traffic-free court bordered by the Ropes Mansion Garden, and its overall sense of (faded) grandeur. But it is abandoned—or is it? This summer, the garden was cropped for the first time I can recall, and a building permit appeared in a dusty downstairs window. Signs of hope for this old house.

I don’t know much about the history of this house, but almost from the moment I came to Salem I heard an interesting anecdote about it. In the late 1970s, while the Merchant-Ivory film The Europeans was being filmed in the adjacent garden over which the house overlooks, its owner placed anachronistic twentieth-century electronic items in each window in a rather overt protest against the disturbances of filming the mid-nineteenth century period piece. This story has become an urban legend and it is just that. Last night, Turner Classic Movies aired The Europeans and I saw it for the first time, including the radio-free and television-free windows of our abandoned house, behind Lee Remick in the garden.

10 Comments | tags: Architecture, films, great houses | posted in History, Houses, Salem

September 2, 2011

Concrete Slide

By daseger

Salem’s Forest River Park has lots of attractions: dazzling views of Salem Harbor and Marblehead, a shady green expanse, bike paths, beaches, a playground, a swimming pool, a baseball field, Pioneer Village, America’s very first living history museum, and its most distinct feature: a slide made of concrete. Concrete, children, and sliding seem incompatible to me, but there it is, and it has been there for some time.

A friend and former student of mine has shared a picture with me (and you) from the 1940s taken by her father: there is Priscilla sliding down the Forest River Concrete Slide fearlessly. It’s such a great picture.

concrete-slide with text And here is the slide today: as Priscilla points out, cardboard was an absolutely necessary accessory for those who ventured onto the concrete slide, both for comfort and speed. The pieces of cardboard strewn about the slide are not litter, but evidence that it is still used.

Despite the evidence of the cardboard, I have never witnessed any children on the slide, but maybe I haven’t hung around the park enough. While I was there this afternoon, these three contemplated it, but ultimately opted out.

I don’t know of another concrete slide in New England but apparently they are big in Northern California. San Francisco, Berkeley, and Davis (that I know of) all have public parks which feature such slides, restored, well-maintained, and evidently quite popular. I suspect Salem’s slide might be an example of California culture come East, but I’m no expert on “playground architecture”. Below are the rather more elaborate concrete slides in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park and Berkeley.