HHR Newsletter

H.H. Richardson House Newsletter - 1/27/07
This is a brief update to the many individuals who have been receiving information, or who have expressed interest in being kept up to date, about the historic house at 25 Cottage Street in Brookline, Mass. in which the famous architect Henry Hobson Richardson worked and lived from 1874 - 1886.

National Trust Nomination
The Committee to Save the H.H. Richardson House recently nominated the house for inclusion on the National Trust for Historic Preservation's "11 Most Endangered Historic Places" list for 2007. Selection for the list is very competitive but the house's nomination received letters of support from the Mass. Historical Commission, Preservation Mass., the Brookline Preservation Commission, the Historic Resources Committee of the Boston Society of Architects, the New England Chapters of the Society of Architectural Historians and the Victorian Society in America, Stonehurst in Waltham, Mass., the Brookline Historical Society, and Professor James F. O'Gorman. Letters supporting the nomination were also written by two New York City-based preservation groups - the New York Landmarks Conservancy and Landmark West - and the national office of the Society of Architectural Historians, which is based in Chicago. The National Trust will announce the 11 finalists in May.

What you can do: Please send a one or two-sentence email to the National Trust asking it to include the house on the "11 Most Endangered" list. The email message should state that the house is historically significant and that its inclusion on the list will greatly raise awareness of its plight. Messages should be sent to 11Most@nthp.org and should reference "H.H. Richardson House, Brookline, Massachusetts" in the subject line.

Boston Globe Article
An article appeared in last Sunday's Boston Globe titled "A Struggle to Save the H.H. Richardson House". The article, by Boston Globe architecture critic Robert Campbell, addresses the historic significance of the house and supports its inclusion on the National Trust's "11 Most Endangered" list as the best means for generating national attention for the house in the quest to find a buyer who will save it. The article ends by saying "If we can't save it, we don't really deserve to call ourselves civilized". I have included below the text of, and an electronic link to, the article.

Charrette
A preservation development charrette was recently held at the house. This one-day brainstorming session was organized by Albert Rex and the Committee to Save the H.H. Richardson House in conjunction with Preservation Mass. The charrette received a Preservation Services Fund grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and was also sponsored by Landmark Services, Service Point, Preservation Mass., Friends of the Brookline Preservation Commission, Building Conservation Associates Inc. and Gary Wolf Architects Inc. At the charrette, two teams composed of architects, real estate finance consultants, zoning and code experts, contractors and preservationists met to explore potential re-use scenarios for the site beyond its historic use as a single-family residence. The charrette participants agreed that the house could be suitable for a more public use by an institution or non-profit organization. Scenarios that were favorably tested at the charrette included developing the house as a residence for a university president, as visiting faculty housing for local hospitals or universities, or as an academic study or seminar center. Efforts are now under way to meet with institutions who might be interested in such potential uses for the house.

Time Is Short
The house is at a critical moment in its history. A buyer must be found soon who will purchase the house with preservation restrictions to protect its historic features - either as the long-term steward of the house (it is estimated that it would cost $5 million to buy and renovate the house) or as a short-term solution to provide immediate relief for the current owner (for example, by providing all or part of a $100,000 loan to help cover the carrying costs while an institutional buyer is located).

Do you know the right person or institution who you think would (or should) take on the stewardship of this landmark and the development of this valuable property? Please forward this email to others you think may be interested and/or provide me with the names and email addresses of individuals who should be included in future distributions. If you would like additional information about the house or know such a potential buyer who may have the deep pockets, creativity and commitment to save it, please let me know.

Thank you for your ongoing interest,
Allan Galper

Allan S. Galper
Chair, Committee to Save the H.H. Richardson House
69 Garland Road
Newton Centre, MA 02459
Email: agalper@mccarter.com
Phone: (617) 345-7072
Fax: (617) 326-3061

"[Richardson was] a thoroughly domestic man. He loved his house above all earthly things." - Architect Peter B. Wight in an 1886 obituary for H.H. Richardson

http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2007/01/21/a_struggle_to_save_the_hh_richardson_house/

ARCHITECTURE

A struggle to save the H.H. Richardson House
Group wants famous architect's former home to make endangered list
By Robert Campbell, Globe Correspondent | Boston Globe | January 21, 2007

Every year, the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington issues a list of "America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places."

The chosen 11 are historic sites that are in danger of being demolished, or otherwise lost. Last year's list included everything from a Civil War battlefield in West Virginia to a string of "Doo Wop" motels in New Jersey.

This year's list comes out in April or May. Massachusetts has a candidate.

A volunteer group, the "Committee to Save the H.H. Richardson House," has nominated a remarkable house at 25 Cottage St. in Brookline.

This was the home of Henry Hobson Richardson, the greatest architect ever to practice in Boston. Richardson was the designer of Trinity Church in Copley Square and many other masterpieces across the country. He became so famous that a whole style of massive stone or brick architecture, usually with deep round arches, came to be called "Richardsonian Romanesque." His influence on other architects has been documented as far away as Scandinavia.

Richardson didn't design 25 Cottage. But he lived here for the whole of his productive career, from 1874 until he died in 1886 in his second-floor bedroom. He redesigned much of the interior and added new space for his architectural office and library.

The bedroom remains almost unchanged today. From its window, in the days before the trees had grown tall, Richardson could and did monitor the construction of Trinity. The bedroom walls are lined with cork, so the architect could pin up drawings to discuss with his clients or staff. (The staff included two young men named Stanford White and Charles McKim, who later became almost as celebrated as Richardson himself.)

Richardson designed the bedroom's Moorish-style ceiling tiles. Most movingly, he installed two metal rings, bolted into the bedroom wall, that he could grip to pull his enormous bulk out of bed in his later years, when he was plagued by Bright's disease.

Richardson's descendants lived here until 2000. The house is now owned by a couple who live next door, Fred and Caroline Hoppin. They bought it with the hope of saving it. They've spent almost $2 million to date on the property, and they continue to bleed money for taxes and mortgage payments. They'd like to sell without taking a loss. If they can't, they'll have to let the house, which needs a lot of work, be demolished.

Lovers of the house believe its days are numbered in months, not years. The cost to buy and renovate the house is estimated at around $5 million.

What the house needs now is a buyer who will love it, care for it, and fix it up. The buyer could be a wealthy individual or it could be an institution. It's been suggested, for example, that the property would make a good president's house for the head of a university or other institution.

To find a buyer, the house needs to get national attention. And the "Eleven Most Endangered" is the best way of getting it.

Richard Moe, chief of staff to Vice President Walter Mondale from 1977 to 1981 , has long been the president of the National Trust. Moe has visited the house and he knows it well.

But will he put it on the list?

"It's a very significant house," Moe says by telephone from Washington. "There's a very compelling case here." In other words, he talks the vague but encouraging language one expects from Washington.

You can't blame him. The Endangered List is extremely competitive. All over the country, people are trying to get sites named to it. The Richardson House deserves to be on the 2007 list. But we'll have to see.

The entire preservation community here has long been on the case. Last fall, seven groups, including the local office of the National Trust, joined to hold a charrette -- a term architects use to describe a period of intense activity. Teams of architects and others worked to explore options for the house. An engineering firm reported on its physical condition. The house, said this consultant, is "totally salvageable."

Even leaving Richardson out of the equation, the house is remarkable. It was built in the 18th century as a summer house for Boston's Samuel Gardner Perkins. It was added to several times, most notably with a tall porch that looks less like New England than like a planter's house in sunny Jamaica. And indeed historians call it "West Indian Style."

It stands in the Green Hill Historic District, an area of two dozen houses that also includes the estate of Frederick Law Olmsted, the great landscape architect who was sometimes Richardson's collaborator, and who often walked over for a chat and a drink.

We've lost too many houses lately. Only last week a modernist masterpiece by architect Paul Rudolph bit the dust in Westport, Conn. A little earlier, we lost the landmark Rachel Raymond house in Belmont.

Architecture is a lot of things. One of those things is a memory bank. In places like the Richardson house, we deposit our cultural memories. If we can't save it, we don't really deserve to call ourselves civilized.