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Present: Daryl DeValerio Andrews, David Bliss, Maia Brindley Nilsson, Matthew Bronski, David Coe, Rachel Consolloy, Sheila Donahue, Allan Galper, Jeffrey Harris, David Hart, John Hecker, David Kelman, David King, Ellen Lipsey, Doug Manley, Kate Murphy, Ivan Myjer, Jeanne Van Orman, Deborah Robinson, Brian Roche, Roberto Rosa, Zac Sargent, Susan Schur, Regan Shields, Jay Stanbury 1. H. H. Richardson's Brookline House: Allan Galper, an attorney with Sherin and Lodgen, LLP, gave a slide lecture on the history, current status, and future prospects for preservation of the house. Originally the Samuel Gardner Perkins House, the house is built in 1803 in the West Indies style, with a prominent front portico with two-story columns. While the West Indies style is relatively rare in New England, several examples are found in this area of Brookline (now the Green Hill National Historic District). The Green Hill area (so named by Isabella Stewart Gardner, who owned another West Indies style house in the neighborhood) retains much of its 18th century character, with rolling landscapes and narrow winding roads bordered by old stone walls. Thirteen of the twenty-four houses in the Green Hill district at the time of its National Register designation were built prior to 1850. As a relatively rare 200 year old example of a West Indies style house, the house would be significant even if it had no association with Richardson. Many people drive by the house and comment that it "doesn't look like Richardson at all", and wonder if it is just an old house that HHR happened to live in, but failed to leave his mark on. Not so. While Richardson made few if any changes to the exterior of the house, he drastically redesigned much of its interior. Many interior elements that emerged in Richardson's later residential designs, such as Stonehurst (the Paine Estate) appear first in his own house. The house includes LaFarge windows in the East Parlor, a Japanese-influenced spindle screen window seat (very similar to one he designed for Stonehurst), and spindle-screen work on the stairwell, with generously-sized stair landings with large windows (again, similar to Stonehurst), and coffered ceilings with an eight point Moorish star pattern. HHR's bedroom includes built-in flat drawers for drawings, and walls lined with cork so that he could pin up drawings. Still mounted in the ceiling above his bed are the oft-mentioned metal rings that Richardson used to lift himself from his bed (his greatest weight was 345 lbs.) Richardson suffered much of his adult life with Bright's Disease, a chronic renal disorder. Richardson designed an office addition to the house (no longer extant). Here he designed many of his greatest works between 1874-86, including the buildings at North Easton; railroad stations and small public libraries; Sever Hall at Harvard; the NY State Capitol; the Allegheny County Courthouse in Pittsburgh; and the proto-modern Marshall Field Wholesale Store and the Glessner House in Chicago. The one-story office addition (nicknamed "the coops" because of the long, narrow, shed-like building, densely filled with drafting desks, resembled a chicken coop) was unusual, almost proto-modern in plan, with a long narrow addition coming diagonally off the corner of the house, disobeying the orthogonal order of the house and knuckling again at another random angle, and terminating in a fan-shape. Richardson's personal office and library formed a triangle in the fan-shaped end, adjacent to the furthest stretch of drafting bays. The coops had copious skylights and windows, with space for 48 drafters. Perhaps form followed function in the coops; the underlying logic to the unorthodox plan angles may have related to capturing optimal daylight for drafting. Richardson's personal library was detailed similarly to some of his well-known library reading rooms, with massive oak ceiling beams, rich dark wood details and trim, walls of bookcases, an inglenook fireplace with Morgan floral tile, a patterned metal fireplace screen, and William Morris curtains. Richardson used it as a showplace, to show clients and potential clients examples of design elements he might do in their buildings. The coops were far more than a place of business for Richardson. They were a place where Richardson loved to interact with his young draftsmen/students. At the time of Richardson's death, an obituary stated that "He loved his house above all earthly things." He allowed the students/draftsmen to play tennis at lunchtime on the tennis court behind his house. He welcomed his students into his library, and let them use it as a resource. He hosted cultural events for them at the office, e.g., Sunday evening chamber music. Artists and other visiting cultural figures would attend these events, as did artistic neighbors, such as Frederick Law Olmsted. HHR would have plans and sketches of current projects on display, and would move the drafting tables aside and set up chairs for concerts. Monday dinners brought HHR's current and former students together with his family in the dining room. Richardson tutored and mentored the students in this highly personal way at his home, before Wright employed a similar approach at his Oak Park home-studio, or later at Taliesan East- then Taliesan West. If the proof is in the results, Richardson's success as a teacher and mentor of young architects greatly exceeded Wright's. Richardson's students/draftsmen who went on to great success include Charles Follen McKim and Stanford White (of McKim Mead and White), George Shepley, Charles Rutan and Charles Coolidge (of HHR's successor firm Shepley Rutan and Coolidge, now SBRA), H. Langford Warren (head of architectural studies at Harvard for more than 20 years, and subject of a recent book by Maureen Meister), Wells Bosworth (architect of MIT's campus in Cambridge), Christopher G. LaFarge (architect of St. John the Devine in NYC, and NYC subway stations), John Galen Howard (head of architectural studies at Cal-Berkeley, and architect of notable buildings in SF and Berkeley area), Messrs. Alden, Longfellow & Harlow, etc. All were among the leaders of American architecture around the turn of the century, and all spent formative years under the tutelage of Richardson at his Brookline office/house. Around 1983, when she was working as a preservation consultant, Ellen Lipsey recalls receiving a mysterious phone call from an older gentleman claiming to be Henry Richardson, inquiring about placing a possible preservation restriction/easement on the house. The call was not from the Twilight Zone, but from HHR's grandson. When Henry Richardson passed on, his four children (one daughter is an architect) wanted nothing to do with a restriction or easement that might interfere with their obtaining the maximum sale price for the house. In January 2000, the property was sold by the Richardson family, without any preservation restrictions, to the neighbors on either side 50/50. The neighbor/owner on one side is Fred Hoppin, a retired doctor, while the neighbor/owner on the other side is Mordechai Levin, a real estate developer. Their goal in jointly buying the Richardson house was to prevent new development that would crowd their abutting properties and adversely affect their views. The joint owners initially presented a unified front when they approached the Brookline Preservation Commission in 1999/2000 and applied for a demolition permit, claiming that they wanted to keep all their options open. The Brookline twelve-month demolition delay period expired. Numerous architectural historians and preservation groups approached the owners about the significance of the house and possibly placing preservation restrictions on it. Dr. Hoppin seemed receptive, and Mordechai Levin initially agreed in principle to preservation restrictions on portions of the house and grounds, but has backed away over time. At various times, the house has been marketed at between $1.6 and $1.85 million, with between 4,424 and 5,500 SF on 1.25 acres of land. In December 2001, an offer was received on the house, but Mr. Levin instead turned to Mr. Hoppin and offered to buy his 50% share in the house. Dr. Hoppin refused. Dr. Hoppin stills seems receptive to the idea of some preservation restriction, but as only 50% owner, he is powerless to do so without agreement by Mr. Levin. Mr. Levin resists the preservation restrictions and seems more interested in buying out Dr. Hoppin's 50% share than in jointly selling to a third party. Mr. Levin's intentions for the property, should he become sole owner, are not publicly known. With this odd stalemate between the co-owners, the house is currently neglected and deteriorating, and interiors are being endangered by roof leaks. Some are quietly working behind the scenes attempting to get roofs repaired and prevent further damage to the interiors. The years since 2000 have been a veritable trail of tears for this house, with many attempts, none successful, either to place preservation restrictions/easements on the house, or to see the house sold to an owner who would be sympathetic to its historic significance and preservation. A 2001 Boston Globe article by Robert Campbell publicized the plight of the house. The Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA, now Historic New England), PreservatiONMASS, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Trust for Public Land, the Town of Brookline Preservation Commission, and others have all made attempts to work toward facilitating the enactment of some protections on the house; but so far, all efforts have failed, and the house remains completely unprotected and vulnerable. In August 2004, Allan Galper formed the Committee to Save the H. H. Richardson House. Sherin and Lodgen, LLP, Allen's firm, generously provides pro-bono legal services to the Brookline Preservation Commission on the matter. In January 2005, after discussions with the co-owners, the Town of Brookline produced a draft Easement Agreement that was more favorable to the owners. However, Mr. Levin has not responded to requests by the Brookline Preservation Commission and its lawyers for reaction to this draft agreement. The Town of Brookline could unilaterally establish the house as a single property historic district, but doing so requires a 2/3 vote of Town Meeting, a vote that would be politically difficult to achieve without owner support. At present, the house remains completely unprotected and highly vulnerable to loss. 2. The Big Uneasy - Heritage at Risk in New Orleans and the Gulf South: Bill Barry encouraged us all to try the website relating to Hurricane Katrina relief efforts that he, SBRA, and HRC have established: http://project1.sbra.com/heritageatrisk The site can also be accessed from the HRC website: http://committees.architects.org/hrc/neworleans.htm. Click the link to register as an "author," which allows you to post thoughts or info. Bill noted that the canned format for this site is not very intuitive for navigating. If that just compounds your frustration, call Bill at 617-423-1700 x281 (office) or 617-817-3480 (cell) for help. 3. Preservation Action: Preservation Action Board Members (and HRC members) Rob Saarnio and Jim Igoe provided handouts outlining the recent advocacy efforts of Preservation Action, a national preservation advocacy group. For information on the group's current and recent efforts, visit http://www.preservationaction.org 4. Brick Conference: Susan Schur distributed registration material for the upcoming conference, Clay Bricks in the 21st Century: Design, Preservation, & Care of Contemporary and Historic Architecture. Poster proposals will be due by Dec. 15, 2005. Get them in now! The conference will be held at MIT March 25-26, 2006. 5. Brownstone Symposium: Ivan Myjer alerted us to a one-day symposium at the Victoria Mansion in Portland, Maine on May 13, 2006 entitled Recent Research and Technical Innovations in Brownstone Conservation. The one-day symposium will feature members of the current brownstone restoration team (including Ivan), as well as researchers from Penn and Princeton. For more information visit: http://www.victoriamansion.org/events.html Featuring Chuck Parrott of NPS Lowell and Jillian Adams of Historic Boston on "Historic Storefront Restoration and Paint Schemes" 8: 00 a.m., Thursday, December 8, 2005 The Architects' Building 52 Broad Street, 5th floor, Boston, Massachusetts
Henry Moss, Matthew Bronski, and Sara Wermiel co-leaders and scribes
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