Historic New England Summer 2007

HistoricNEW ENGLAND

PRESENTED BY

THE SOCIETY FOR

THE PRESERVATION OF

NEW ENGLAND ANTIQUITIES

SUMMER 2007

PRESENTED BY

THE SOCIETY FOR

THE PRESERVATION OF

NEW ENGLAND ANTIQUITIES

SUMMER 2007

SLEEPER’SADVENTURE

WITH COLOR

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F R O M T H E P R E S I D E N T

What would New England be like withoutits historic houses? The character of a placedevelops over time, with new layers addedby subsequent generations. We appreciatethe mature trees, individualized design,diverse styles, and meandering roads andpathways that are signs of old neighbor-hoods. Sometimes immediately visible inour New England communities, but some-times buried under later changes, are build-ings 350 years old. Historic New Englandcares for some of the most important sur-viving seventeenth-century properties, butothers remain in private care. Rooted in thepast while at the same time present in ourmidst, these buildings contribute to oursense of place and the feeling that there islongevity to a community and its stories.

This year marks the bicentennials ofRundlet-May and Nickels-Sortwell housesand the centennial of Beauport, the Sleeper-McCann House. How readily they couldhave been lost if steps had not been takenby people dedicated to their care. We cele-brate Members’ Month inJune to recognize your sup-port of Historic New Eng-land’s efforts to protect thebroad scope of the region’sarchitecture, landscapes,artifacts, and visual record.

—Carl R. Nold

SPOTLIGHT 1Festive Fundraising

YESTERDAY’S HISTORY 8Preserving Aviation History

MAKING FUN OF HISTORY 10Colorful Artwork

PRESERVATION 12The Porch in New England

OPEN HOUSE 14Two Ports in a Storm

RECREATION 22Golf Tees Off in Massachusetts

MUSEUM SHOP 24The Historic New England Book Store

NEWS: NEW ENGLAND & BEYOND 25

ACQUISITIONS 26Research Zigzag

Except where noted, all historic photographs and ephemera are from Historic New England’s Library and Archives.

Henry Sleeper’s Adventure with Color 2

Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman 16

V I S I T U S O N L I N E AT w w w. H i s t o r i c N e w E n g l a n d . o r g

HistoricNEW ENGLAND

Summer 2007Vol. 8, No.1

Historic New England141 Cambridge StreetBoston MA 02114-2702(617) 227-3956

HISTORIC NEW ENGLAND magazine is a benefit of membership.To join Historic New England, please visit our website, HistoricNewEngland.org or call (617) 227-3957, ext.273. Comments? Please callNancy Curtis, editor at (617) 227-3957, ext.235. Historic NewEngland is funded in part by the Institute of Museum and LibraryServices and the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

Executive Editor Editor DesignDiane Viera Nancy Curtis DeFrancis Carbone

COVER The view from the Strawberry Hill Room into the Belfry Chambercreates drama with contrasting colors at Beauport, Sleeper-McCann House,in Gloucester, Mass. Photography by David Carmack.

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1Summer 2007 Historic New England

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he second Historic New England Benefit Auction Gala was heldon January 5 at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Boston. With the enthu-siastic encouragement of guest auctioneers, Leigh and LeslieKeno, the 250 guests bid on items such as a week in the English

countryside, lunch with Martha Stewart, fine vintage wines, private dinners inexclusive places, and special getaways.

The gala raised more than $270,000 to support educational and out-reach programs in the greater Boston area, such as those serving more thansix thousand inner-city students through the Pierce House Program inDorchester. A historical footnote to the occasion was the fact that this wasthe last event held in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel ballroom prior to the hotel’snew incarnation as The Taj.

ABOVE RIGHT Historic New England President Carl R. Nold

welcomes guests. ABOVE LEFT Robert Radloff and Ann

M. Beha. BELOW LEFT Auctioneers Leigh Keno and Leslie

Keno with gala co-chairs Victoria DiStefano and Susan

Sloan. BELOW CENTER Jenny Seeman and Barbara Alfond.

BELOW RIGHT Martha Hamilton, Sally Miller, Catha Hesse,

and Anne Kilguss.

Festive Fundraising

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Henry Sleeper’s

Adventure with Color

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relationship between primary and secondary colors. His skillful use of harmonious and complementary hues under-pins everything at Beauport. Monochromatic collections ofglassware, pewter, silver, and ceramics make for spectaculardisplays and add wide brushstrokes of color to rooms fittedout in harmonizing wallpapers, painted paneling, and furni-ture. Hooked rugs, fabric treatments, and upholstery in com-plementary tones provide contrast and texture. Decorativeceramic doorknobs, tooled leather bookbindings, poly-chromed prints, and tinted light fixtures punctuate Sleeper’srooms with subtle dabs of color that lock the arrangementsinto an artistic whole. Once complete, these arrangements

FACING PAGE In the Belfry Chamber, wallpaper, paneling, rugs, textiles,

and glassware in shades of green and red form strong color con-

trasts. Sleeper used similar tones of red and green to create dra-

matic transitions between rooms (see cover). ABOVE Beauport grew

with its interiors, evolving from simple cottage to rambling castle

over the course of twenty-seven years. The cornerstone was laid

on October 12, 1907.

eye-popping array of antique objects—the decorating mediumhe preferred—and brilliantly arranged with a designer’s flarefor volume and space. In every room, Sleeper’s imaginativepalette dazzles the senses. In the 1920s and early 1930s,admiring articles in decorating magazines helped putBeauport on the map and propel Sleeper's professional careeras a much sought-after interior designer. Nancy McClelland,a leading New York decorator at the time, trumpeted hisstyle in both picture and print, calling Beauport “one of theloveliest Colonial houses that I know” and a work created“with the keenest appreciation of color.”

What was the secret of Sleeper’s success? Behind the riotof hues, he manipulated color with a gifted eye and an artist’sprecision. He understood the color wheel and the prism-like

Celebrating its hundredth anniversary this year,

this magical seaside homecontinues to glow with carefully arranged color.

eauport, Henry Davis Sleeper’s

masterful creation in Gloucester,

Massachusetts, is awash in anBD

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4 Historic New England Summer 2007

rarely changed, and when they did, the alterations preservedor enhanced the established color scheme.

Sleeper assembled his rooms around dominant colors.The Chapel Chamber, created in 1911, usesforest green woodwork, celery- and olive-tint-ed wallpaper, and apple-green glassware toestablish a single dominant tone. Subtle colorsin bed hangings, upholstery, and rugs, some nolonger extant, add pattern and warmth alongwith contrasting tones of red—the hue oppo-site green on the color wheel. A chair’s mulber-ry-tinted covering, a cupboard’s magenta-pinklining, and a vase’s display of apple blossomsor pink dogwood help electrify the air.

Sleeper gave special attention to the rela-tionships between adjacent rooms. Pine floors, stained to arich dark walnut and waxed to a high gloss, predominate. A few of the earliest rooms dating from 1908 feature a continuous run of warm brick pavers originally finished in asoft powder rose with mortar joints stained to match. Waxednow to a dark brown, these bricks unify the space, while contrasting subtly with sage-green paneling and wallpapermotifs. Other wood-work painted in various shades of brown estab-

lishes logical progressions between rooms and provides neu-tral backgrounds for many of the collections. Shades of milkchocolate provide natural foils for harmonizing reds, yel-

lows, and greens or contrasting tones of peri-winkle and blue. Later rooms done in pumpkinpine paneling, such as the Master Mariner’sRoom, continue the brown theme.

Bold contrasts between adjoining roomscreate some of Beauport’s most exciting effects.Sleeper’s second wave of building between1910 and 1915 transformed the exterior andintroduced many of these striking contrasts.His “color combinations,” as he called them,use hues from opposite sides of the color wheelto create “some logical relation to the rooms as

to color, and perhaps make them a little more cheerful.”Orange taffy tones in the original South Gallery contrast withaqua-blue wallpaper and glassware in the room next door. In another pairing, straw-yellow bookcases set off pale lilacwallpaper. Vermilion and black lacquered wallpaper in the Strawberry Hill Room, awash in ruddy tones fromstrategically placed colored lampshades, frame apple-greenwoodwork in the adjoining Belfry Chamber. The theme of

ABOVE LEFT A blue lambrequin contrasts with pumpkin pine wood-

work in the Master Mariner’s Room.Shades of brown carry through

many of Beauport’s rooms. BELOW Primary colors —red, blue,

and yellow—are evenly distributed around the color wheel.

Harmonious colors lie adjacent; complementary colors fall oppo-

site. ABOVE RIGHT This 1928 view of the Chapel Chamber by

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contrasting red and green was one of Sleeper’s favorites, andit pervades Beauport.

In building a room, Sleeper would choose a dominantcolor from among the materials he collected, which couldinclude objects, historic wallpapers, and salvaged wood-work. During World War I, while working in France with theAmerican Ambulance Field Service, which he helped create,Sleeper acquired a cache of red toleware, around which hedesigned the Octagon Room. “I am planning to make a newroom at Gloucester,” he wrote to his Boston friend and kin-dred spirit Isabella Stewart Gardner of Fenway Court. “Thenew room will be octagonal in shape (22 feet square) & allmy red painted tin in it—that I brought back from France—of course I have all the details visualized & am enjoying itaccordingly.” A second collection of amethyst-colored glass-ware, assembled at the same time, introduces the adjacenthue on the color wheel. To this mix, Sleeper added a floralprint fabric of crimson peonies on a ground of deep maroon,repeating the red-purple combination while introducing var-ious accent colors. Aubergine walls (now faded to a lustrouscharcoal) provide a contrasting backdrop for yellow-huedmaple furniture. Reddish light, cast from crimson awnings byday and purple silk lampshades by night, reflects off vermilion

William B.E. Rankin, England’s master of interior illustration,

preserves the room’s original color scheme. Varying shades

of green contrast perfectly with soft pink. ABOVE Rankin’s view

of the Octagon Room captures its original palette of crimson,

maroon, plum, and violet.

toleware and leather-bound books to amplify the lacqueredeffect. To move from this Aladdin’s cave into the brightly litGolden Step Room, with its tones of white, emerald, and sea-foam green, is to experience Sleeper’s love affair with red andgreen at its most dramatic.

Sleeper chose shades of color that added the patina ofage to his house and its arrangement of antiques. The roomshe created were neither new interiors nor period rooms; theyevoke rather than recreate earlier times. Nancy McClelland,who wrote extensively about Beauport, described the waySleeper collected “old paneling from everywhere and studiedwith great care the various layers of colors that were revealedas the paint was lifted off.” Chocolate brown, robin’s eggblue, sage green, apple green, cream, golden brown, paleprimrose, pumpkin yellow, dull dark rusty red, gray—thesewere discovered on salvaged woodwork that found its way toBeauport. The colors, McClelland gushed, “are used in thisgreat rambling house so intelligently that they produceeffects that never existed in old houses, although all the elements were there and nothing has been added except tasteand knowledge of how best to use it.”

In many ways, Sleeper’s approach to decorating fitssquarely into the larger canon of interior design sweeping

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Europe, England, and America at this time. Taking his cuefrom eighteenth-century English antiquarians like HoraceWalpole and late nineteenth-century taste makers like OscarWilde, Sleeper joined others in discovering a new sort ofbeauty in objects plucked from the past. With this came afreedom to collect whatever delighted the eye. Engravings,kitchen pewter, redware, glassware, and countless othergoods from everyday life rose to the level of art and pro-vided fresh design ideas. Edith Wharton and OgdenCodman’s collaborative work, The Decoration of Houses(1897), argued persuasively for a new, simpler aesthetic,which emphasized past precedent, architectural restraint,intrinsic beauty, and clarity of arrangement not seen since the1830s. Although Codman and Wharton’s penchant for allthings French contrasted starkly with Sleeper’s preference forAmericana, the three of them nevertheless believed in thequality and decorating potential of antique things.

Changing fashion, which also drove the decorating mar-ketplace into which Sleeper ventured in the 1920s and 1930s,imposed its own tastes. The phrase “pleasing decay,” notesEnglish design historian Stephen Calloway, describes an earlyversion of shabby chic. This style, which favored pickled furniture and stripped woodwork similar to Beauport’s pine-paneled rooms, found wide appeal among Sleeper’s clients.Similarly, the early twentieth-century craze for red lacquerand everything Chinese explains much about the creation ofthe Octagon Room and the China Trade Room at Beauport.By 1931, one noted decorating magazine reported that darkcolors were “the latest thing, to be seriously considered ifnew work is to be done,” and drove home the point with aphotograph of the plum-colored Octagon Room. In the ageof coal, taste makers also cautioned against light interiors,calling white rooms “an extravagance” and warning thatmost white paint “turns yellow in sunlight.”

Notwithstanding the problems with white paint, tech-nical advances in paint and dye manufacturing at the turn of the twentieth century had begun to make possible anastonishing array of colors in paints, textiles, and wallpapers,which allowed designers to experiment as never before. If the correct shade could not be found off the shelf, Sleeper had it mixed to match. For client Caroline Sinkler, he delivered a weather-beaten shingle to Samuel Cabot’s ofBoston, with instructions to match the color precisely. Hismost important paint-matching jobs were entrusted to the American Painting & Decorating Company, also ofBoston, with whom Sleeper maintained a long and fruitfulrelationship. When he failed to find the exact fabric he needed,he often sent a comparable article to the shop of Wood, Edey,and Slayter of New York City, who, “from long and intelli-gent business adventure,” Sleeper explained, knew “prettywell what can and what cannot be done as far as dyeing orother such matters are concerned.”

In late-Victorian and Edwardian society, colors were alsofreighted with meaning, and these associations were widelyunderstood. Black meant mourning, of course, and white sig-nified purity and life. Green, the color of leaves and oftenused in conservatories and garden rooms, represented nature.Blue, the color of the sky and the sea, suggested refreshmentand purification, and was a natural choice for rooms over-looking the shore. Sleeper’s original scheme for his terracefurniture included Windsor chairs and tables painted robin’segg blue. Purple was linked to royalty and imperial power,while violet meant love and truth. The Octagon Room, atonce the most formal and the most intimate of spaces, derivessome of its effect from the meanings behind these tones.

Brighter colors also suggested daylight activities, appro-priate for breakfast rooms or salons. The easterly facingentrance hall, with its cream-colored walls, was designedoriginally as a breakfast space. The Golden Step Room, theonly white-walled room in the house, became the morningroom of choice in later years. Light-colored rooms also carriedfeminine associations; a tiny music room with pale wallpaperthat Sleeper designed for his mother corresponded to theVictorian ideal of the woman’s domestic sphere. Darker huessuggested evening, restfulness, or thoughtful contemplation.

ABOVE LEFT The exceptionally well-preserved painted wallpaper

provided Sleeper with inspiration for the China Trade Room.

The Chippendale-style mirror was one of the few McCann family

changes to Sleeper’s interiors. CENTER Purple lampshades harmo-

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A green-walled room, facing west and overlookingthe harbor, was Beauport’s original location forevening meals. Darker rooms were also often associ-ated with masculine pursuits. Beauport was, after all,intended as a retreat for Harry and his two olderbrothers, as well as for his mother. “Dark walls,”wrote one Sleeper admirer, “especially in blue orgreen, are the most restful backgrounds known. Mennearly always like them. They have a certain richnessand stability, appealing to the mind that distrustsfemininity and fragility even in color.”

Beauport continues to project the passion of its creator. Anexchange of letters between Sleeper and Henry Francis du Pontmakes apparent the breathless, almost giddy pleasure with whichSleeper approached his work. Du Pont admired Beauport andengaged Sleeper to do design work for him. The correspondencedescribes Sleeper’s encounter with a rug. “By fantastic chance,” hewrote, “the colors seem to be extraordinarily like our scheme—which in an old oriental rug does not often happen…Day light is pretty poor in Tiffany’s rug room, but I gave it, by daylight and artificial light, the best test I could by taking pieces of the curtain, lambrequin, and paint color, with me. If the rug does go, as I believe it will, it will ‘make’ the room…I hope from my

nize with plum tones in the Octagon Room. FAR RIGHT Light from

the huge sliding window in the Golden Step Room fills the dining

hall with a cool aqua glow that contrasts starkly with the darker

tones of the adjoining Octagon Room. BELOW Henry Sleeper,

instinct and adventure with color that I havehit the mark.”

After Henry Sleeper’s death in 1934,Beauport was purchased by Charles andHelena Woolworth McCann, who preservedthe house virtually intact before their childrendonated it to Historic New England in 1942.When Henry du Pont learned of the McCannpurchase, he wrote Helena offering his con-gratulations. He described the house as “a suc-

cession of fascinating pictures and color schemes,” and cau-tioned her against changing the designs. “Naturally theminute you take things out of the house,” he wrote, “orchange them about, the value of the collection does not exist,as really the arrangement is 90%.” Thanks to this advice andthe McCann family’s generosity, Beauport begins its secondcentury much as it did its first: as an inspiration to others.

—Philip A. HaydenMr. Hayden, a history consultant, has studied Beauport and Sleeper extensively.

c.1930. His short professional career from 1920 until his death in

1934 included some fifty-two known commissions, representing

experiments in color well beyond those at Beauport.

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t was only six years and four monthsafter Orville and Wilbur Wrightmade their historic first flight atKitty Hawk, North Carolina, that

Herring and Burgess brought aviationto Plum Island, a small barrier islandnorth of Boston. The fields along thePlum Island Turnpike have been usedby pilots ever since. Today, the non-profit Plum Island Aerodrome, Inc.,operates a small airfield on thirty-fouracres of land owned by Historic NewEngland at the Spencer-Peirce-LittleFarm in Newbury, Massachusetts.

The area’s significance in the historyof New England aviation is relativelyunknown, as are the pioneering rolesplayed by Augustus Moore Herring andW. Starling Burgess. Truly an inno- vator, Herring began experimenting with gliders in the 1890s. In 1896 he col-laborated with the “Father of Aviation”

Octave Chanute on a biplaneglider that was among thefirst pre-Wright aircrafts toleave the ground. Eventually,Herring teamed up withBurgess, who owned a shipyardin Marblehead, Massachusetts,and had studied engineeringand architecture at Harvard, bring-ing both technical knowledge and boat-building skills to the partnership. At the first Boston Aero Show inFebruary 1910, the duo introducedtheir first product, the Herring-BurgessModel A biplane. On February 28, withHerring as pilot, the Model A took off from frozen Chebacco Lake in Essex,Massachusetts, and flew 360 feet at analtitude of about thirty feet—the firstknown airplane flight in New England.Herring and Burgess sold their originalModel A immediately following the

Y E S T E R D A Y ’ S H I S T O R Y

I flight and began work on animproved version.

The revised Herring-Burgess Model A was takenby ferry from the Burgess shipyard in Marblehead tonearby Plum Island for itsearly morning inaugural flight

on April 17, 1910, which was reportedthe next day in the Newburyport Daily

“Patience was at last rewarded when Sunday

morning the Herring-Burgess bi-plane made three

flights from the aviation field at High Sandy Beach,

Plum Island…it was demonstrated by Messrs. A.M.

Herring and W. Starling Burgess that success had

been scored and it was possible to soar high when

it was desired.” —Newburyport Daily News,

Newburyport, Massachusetts, April 18, 1910

Preserving Aviation History

TOP RIGHT The Massachusetts North

Shore boasts a little-known but im-

portant aviation history. Here, the

Herring-Burgess Model A biplane

takes flight over Plum Island in April

1910. ABOVE CENTER Aviation pioneer

W. Starling Burgess, a contemporary

of the Wright brothers, received the

prestigious Collier Trophy in 1915 rec-

ognizing the role he played in the

growth of U.S. aviation.

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News. By 1911, the Model A was soldto Joseph C. Shoemaker, who continuedrefining its design until it was capableof flights as far as nine miles. In 1961,the Herring-Burgess biplane was don-ated to the Smithsonian Institution.After several partnerships, Burgess operated his business on his own, even-tually attracting the Wright brothers’attention, who licensed the company to build Burgess-Wright aeroplanes. In 1915, Burgess was awarded theprestigious Collier Trophy for thegreatest progress in aviation in the pre-ceding year.

Use of the Plum Island airfield forprivate flights and aviation exhibitionscontinued sporadically through theearly 1900s. The first documented useof the airport at its present site on thePlum Island Turnpike occurred in 1926,the same year that the United StatesArmy Air Service reportedly designatedit an emergency landing field. Activityat the site quickly grew. In the mid-1930s, Johnnie Polando began offeringpassenger service, airmail flights, andpilot training at the Plum Island air-port. Polando and his colleague RussellBoardman were well known by fellowaviators as the team who held the long-distance flight record for their non-stopNew York-to-Istanbul trip in 1931.

The airport was used extensivelyby the Civilian Pilot Training Programuntil 1942 when all civilian airportswithin 25 miles of the coast wereordered to close. During World War II,the Coast Guard and a small Civil Air Patrol unit began using the PlumIsland airport. Polando left to serve inthe Army Air Force, but his partnerWarren Frothingham remained to oper-ate the airport for the next two dozenyears. The Plum Island airport oper-ation changed hands again in 1966,and continued to offer pilot training,aircraft maintenance, parcel delivery,tie-down services, and scenic flights.

In August 2006, local residentStephen Noyes fulfilled a childhooddream and became operator of thePlum Island airport, under a lease fromHistoric New England. Noyes, who hasbeen flying since he was fifteen yearsold and holds a degree in airport man-agement, grew up down the street fromthe airport. As president of Plum IslandAerodrome, Inc., he is working closelywith Historic New England and thecommunity to share the airfield’s richlocal history with the public.

—Diane VieraVice President and Chief Operating Officer

Collecting twentieth-century objects andproperties is an important component ofHistoric New England’s ability to fulfill itsmission—preserving and presenting NewEngland’s heritage from the seventeenthcentury to the present. To effectively tell theregion’s stories to future generations, wemust have the foresight to care for and doc-ument history as it is being made. Earlytwentieth-century automobile advertisementsin Historic New England’s Library andArchives speak to such foresight. They werecollected when new by founder WilliamSumner Appleton, who never learned todrive but understood their historical signifi-cance. Recording the aviation stories of thePlum Island airport is another example ofpreserving and sharing our twentieth-centuryheritage, as is welcoming visitors to WalterGropius’s 1938 home in Lincoln, Mass-achusetts, one of Historic New England’smost visited properties.

Mid-twentieth century architecture isthreatened by tear-downs. Landscapes evolveand change, and designs from the recentpast fade away from neglect or lack ofunderstanding. Historic New England’s com-mitment to preserving twentieth-centurybuildings, landscapes and collections willensure that the stories of all eras of NewEngland heritage can be told to future gen-erations.

ABOVE Long-time Plum Island airport man-

ager Warren Frothingham and his son

Everett in a Piper J-2 Cub, late 1930s. LEFT

Plum Island Aerodrome president Stephen

Noyes and a volunteer crew recently

repaired the asphalt surfaces and repainted

the Plum Island runway designation.

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M A K I N G F U N O F H I S T O R Y

�

1780Watercolor pigments,compressed into small,hard blocks, make coloring more accessible

Around 1820Colored pencilsintroduced

1841Metal painttubes invented

1885An early coloringbook, The LittleFolks PaintingBook, is published

1893Toy company founderMilton Bradley writes aseries of popular children’sbooks about colors

Can you guess how this is used?

Colors

do you know

with just red, yellow, blue, and white?

Did you know that you can make every color in the rainbow

This is a palette, used for mixing colors. Yousqueeze watercolor paints into the round compart-ments, then mix the paints with water on the flat surfaces to get the exact hue you want.

This palette is about one hundred years old andis made of porcelain. Ones just like it are still beingmade today.

Do you like to make colorful artwork?

Let's learn about the historyof some of our favoriteart supplies!

��

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Color the empty squares so that each row, column,and six-square section contains all the colors of the rainbow—red, yellow, orange, green, blue, and purple.

Answers can be found on page 23.

1950sPaint-by-number kitsbecome popular

1953First felt-tippedmarkers sold

��

fun color facts

color sudoku

1967Lite Brite, a toy thatmakes pictures withglowing colored plasticpegs, introduced

1980sFirst drawing soft-ware for computersdeveloped

1903Crayons invented andsold by Binney & Smith

Visit www.HistoricNewEngland.org/kids/colors to download

pictures to color or to order our coloring book.

• Human beings have been making pictures sincebefore recorded history. Prehistoric people drewpictures on cave walls using pigments they madefrom red, yellow, and brown earth. The cave pic-tures are the oldest paintings in the world.

Artists used to have to get their colors from natur-al sources—animals, vegetables, and minerals. Hereare some materials they used to make bright colors:

Red—cochineal beetles from Central and South AmericaYellow—cow urine,from cows fed entirely on mango leaves (from India)Blue—lapis lazuli,a valuable blue stone, crushed into a powder Purple—snails (from the Mediterranean Sea)White—lead

�• By the nineteenth century, scientists discovered waysto make colors using chemicals rather than naturalsources. One of the first man-made colors wasmauve, a shade of purple, invented by eighteen-year-old William Henry Perkin.

• Finger paints were invented in 1931. Elementaryschool teacher Ruth Faison Shaw got the idea whenshe sent a student to put iodine on a cut and laterfound him painting with iodine on the bathroomwalls.

• According to a study on smell by a Yale Universityscientist, the scent of a Crayola crayon is one oftwenty smells most easily recognized by Americanadults.

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12 Historic New England Summer 2007Historic New England Summer 2007Historic New England Summer 2007

ecollections of summerspast in New England evokememories of time spent on a porch enjoying the breeze,

a pleasant view, and good conversa-tion. In seventeenth-century NewEngland, only the ambitious home of a prominent citizen would feature aporch—usually a simple, enclosedentrance projecting from the mainfaçade, with an unheated chamberabove. When a leisured merchant classemerged in the eighteenth century, itbecame common for homes of the eliteto include a summerhouse—a roomcovered by a roof, screened with lou-vers, latticework, and vines, and sited a short distance from the house as acool retreat. These detached structureswere the precursors of the nineteenth-century porch or outdoor living room.

Architectural historian HughMorrison suggests that the open-airattached porch first appeared in theBoston area just before the AmericanRevolution. In 1771, John SingletonCopley commented that he planned toadd a “peazer” (piazza) to his houseon Beacon Hill to provide a coolescape in the summer months and pro-tection from storms in the winter. Atthe end of the eighteenth century andthe beginning of the nineteenth century,the formal columned entry portico,which recalled the temples of antiquityand reflected the status of the home-owner, became a defining feature ofFederal and Greek Revival architecture.In New England, these porticoes wereused predominantly as embellishedentryways rather than as places to sit.

It was the writings of the land-scape designer and taste maker Andrew

R Jackson Downing that spurred the wide-spread popularity of the porch as anoutdoor living space. In books writtenbetween 1841 and 1850 containingplans for homes in the Gothic Revivaland Italianate styles, Downing wroteabout the importance of the porch asan extension of the home into its natural surroundings. He and otherwriters promoted the medicinal bene-fits of fresh air for good health.Porches remained popular throughoutthe rest of the nineteenth century andwere added to older houses as well asincluded in the designs for new homes,hotels, hospitals, and sanitariums.Advances in millwork productionmade possible wide varieties of turn-ings for railings, brackets, and otherfanciful adornments. Many late nine-teenth and early twentieth-centuryhomes also included second-story

The Porch in New England

P R E S E R V A T I O N

RIGHT In one form or another, there

has been a porch at the eastern end of

Historic New England’s Lyman Estate,

The Vale, in Waltham, Massachusetts,

since the early nineteenth century.

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sleeping porches, which were oftenused year round.

Gradually the porch came toresemble a Victorian parlor, furnishedwith an array of furniture and acces-sories ranging from straw mats, cast-iron plant stands, swings, rockers,wicker suites of furniture, shades madeof cloth and reeds, and canvas awnings.Wood elements were painted to com-plement the exterior of the house;decking was usually gray and ceilings a light sky blue. Trellises, windowboxes, and potted plants completed theporch’s decoration.

In the years following World War II, living habits changed. Televisiondrew people off the porch and into theliving room; the noise and exhaust ofpassing automobiles caused families toretreat to backyards and patios. Asporches came to be seen as unnecessary

appendages in need of paint andupkeep, they were frequently removedto simplify home maintenance, or, insome cases, to restore a home back toan earlier appearance.

It is important to perform routinemaintenance on porches to prevent the need for costly future repairs.Carefully inspect the roofing materialand flashings at the juncture of theporch and the house and secure orreplace failing elements to preventwater from entering the building anddamaging the framing members. Cleanand inspect gutters and downspouts atleast twice a year to ensure roof wateris being directed away from the porchand house. Structural and decorativewood elements, including decking andstairs, should be kept painted. Replacedamaged elements with new parts thatmatch the wood species, dimensions,

and profiles of the originals. Monitorthe framing and footings below theporch for movement or decay, andrepair or replace them in-kind as neces-sary. Regular preventive maintenancecan ensure protection of this importantfeature of your home’s history andcharacter.

—Joseph CornishSenior Stewardship Manager

ABOVE RIGHT A twentieth-century screened

porch overlooking the Annisquam River in

Gloucester, Massachusetts. LEFT Porch fur-

nishings at the Codman Estate, Lincoln,

Massachusetts, in the early twentieth century.

BELOW At the c. 1675 Ross Tavern in Ipswich,

Massachusetts, a two-story entrance porch

projects from the front façade at right.

1594.qxp 5/24/07 9:20 AM Page 13


O P E N H O U S E

n the spring of 1807, James Rundletof Portsmouth, New Hampshire,and Captain William Nickels ofWiscasset, Maine, each began con-

struction of a fine mansion. Nickelsstarted by moving an older house to aback street to make room on a small lotin the center of town for his imposinghouse with its elegant façade. Rundletbuilt his somewhat less ornate mansionon the outskirts of Portsmouth, on asizeable plot featuring a terraced riseabove the street and impressive gar-dens, an orchard, and open land behind.As work on the two structures pro-gressed during the summer of that year,neither man suspected the financialturn of fate that would soon be dealt toNew England.

In the early nineteenth century,Europe’s Napoleonic wars temptedNew England merchants willing toprovide goods and ships to bothEngland and France with risky butpotentially lucrative trade opportunities.

As hostilities progressed, both Englandand France began to seize Americanvessels in order to pressure the youngUnited States to join the conflict. Thispractice, coupled with the British habitof impressing American sailors into theRoyal Navy, enraged New Englanders,who were heavily invested in trans-Atlantic trade. President Jefferson, loathto involve the New Republic in theEuropean conflict, looked to preserveAmerica’s neutrality. Finally, in responseto New England’s outrage at the superpowers’ disregard of American sover-eignty, Jefferson pushed for an embar-go. Passed into law on December 22,the Embargo Act of 1807 prohibitedAmerican exports to all foreign ports.

The embargo was a devastatingblow to the New England economy anda new source of outrage for the mer-chants it crippled. Nickels, then trea-surer for the town of Wiscasset, wasone of six men chosen by the town todraft an official anti-embargo petition

Ito Jefferson, which stated “the advan-tages of Active Commerce would for-ever overbalance all the losses to whichit is exposed,” a statement that reflect-ed the feelings of most New Englandmerchants after the act was passed.Resulting financial hardships pushedNickels into a series of legal battles torecoup pre-embargo shipping losses; thelast of these cases was finally settled in1906 with a payment to his heirs.

In 1812, war broke out withEngland. That same year brought per-sonal tragedy to Nickels with thedeaths of his wife and daughter. In lateryears, the family blamed the expense ofthe house, which drained Nickels’ cap-ital during these troubled times, for hisfinancial downfall. Nickels’ son reflectedthat his father “was not prepared towithstand the gale, his Barque wasstranded on the shores of misfortuneand folly, and its crew had to leave thewreck and seek shelter in an unfriendlyworld.” In 1815, Captain Nickels died

Two Ports in a Storm

LEFT The battle between the

USS Constitution and the HMS

Guerrière was an early success

for the United States in the War

of 1812. During the mêlée,

the Constitution earned her

nickname “Old Ironsides.” This

depiction of the fight is one

of a series of prints, all with

their original frames and glass,

purchased by James Rundlet

after the war to decorate his

new home.

1594.qxp 5/24/07 9:20 AM Page 14


of consumption. His estate was auc-tioned off to pay his debts, leaving hischildren dependent on the mercifulcharity of family and friends.

Many Portsmouth merchants werelikewise harmed by the embargo andthe war, but not James Rundlet. As animporter, Rundlet specialized in manu-factured English fabrics, which he soldat his store on Market Street. His busi-ness relied on the profits earned inretail and wholesale sales, with littledependence on risky exports and ship-ping ventures. The dearth of importedgoods during the embargo allowedRundlet to take advantage of the in-flated values of the stock he had onhand. During the War of 1812, heinvested profitably in privateering andmanaged to secure government con-tracts to supply woolen uniforms. Likethe Lowells and the Cabots of Boston,he was able to diversify by investing in

the domestic textile industry. The warwas thus a financial boon to Rundlet;he purchased a series of prints depict-ing its major battles and hung them inthe house. The elegant dining roomwas hung with imported English paperand furnished with a dining set possiblypurchased at the estate sale of SamuelHam, a Portsmouth merchant whoseruined finances drove him to suicide in1813. Rundlet’s wise investments sus-tained his lifestyle and helped his chil-dren live comfortably through thenineteenth century.

The 1807 embargo was repealedin 1809, days before the end ofJefferson’s term, and replaced by theNon-Intercourse Act, which restrictedtrade only with England and France.Neither act had the desired effect ofcrippling the British economy andmaintaining America’s neutrality,merely devastating New England’s

economy and forestalling war withEngland. For many merchants, theearly nineteenth century was the end ofa golden age. For others like Rundlet,who learned to ride the wave of disas-ter, it was the opening of a new chapterin New England’s economic history.

—Peter MichaudSpecial Projects Director, New Hampshire Divisionof Historical Resourcess

ABOVE LEFT The ornate façade of the Nickels-Sortwell House, inspired

by the pattern books of Asher Benjamin, sits prominently in the village

of Wiscasset, Maine. ABOVE RIGHT The Rundlet-May House stands on

what was once the edge of downtown Portsmouth. The substantial

landholdings around the house extended not only to the two acres of

surviving gardens but also to a sizable lot of land across the street,

giving the house the air of a country manor. RIGHT The dining room of

the Rundlet-May House.

Rundlet-May and Nickels-Sortwell housesare open for tours on the first and thirdSaturdays of the month, 11 am to 4 pm,June 1 through October 15. Admission freeto members of Historic New England.

Dav

id B

ohl

Dav

id B

ohl

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ohl

1594.qxp 5/24/07 9:20 AM Page 15


Edit

h W

hart

on

Res

tora

tio

n A

rchi

ves,

The

Mo

unt

Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman

Co-authors, Comrades, and Connoisseurs

—Eleanor DwightA teacher and biographer, Ms. Dwight

is author of Edith Wharton: AnExtraordinary Life.

1594.qxp 5/24/07 9:21 AM Page 16


Fond of the same eighteenth-century European styles as she was, he became a regular, and with Teddy made up athreesome.

With his talent and his familiarity with France, Ogdensaw things differently from the elite of Boston, Newport, andNew York. His family was no longer as wealthy as they hadonce been, but their social position was secure, and he viewedtheir country house in Lincoln, Massachusetts, Historic NewEngland’s Codman Estate, as a touchstone of good taste. Hecared very much for social position—who people were, andwhere they came from. Aware that he needed to make a living,he assessed all his clients’ fortunes and knew everyone’sincomes. But he was also a gifted, hardworking man, keen touse his ideas to design beautiful houses.

Edith had spent summers in Newport since she was ten,after her family returned from a six-year sojourn in Europe.She was already “in” with the socially prominent familiesfrom New York and Boston who spent the hot months by the ocean in their rambling houses in the 1870s and 1880s.When she and Teddy set up housekeeping there in the late1880s, the town was changing,fast becoming the showy resortof the super rich. She knew theVanderbilts, the Astors, andother wealthy families withboth “old and new money”who were transforming thetown; she observed what theywere doing and recorded it inher fiction. Her prodigiousreading and interest in Euro-pean travel set her apart fromother Newport socialites. Herview of society was similar toOgden’s—they saw themselves

orrespondence between Ogden Codman, Jr., andEdith Wharton, and between Codman and hismother—much of it preserved in Historic NewEngland’s Library and Archives—trace the arc

of friendship between two creative people. When Codmanand Wharton met in the mid-1890s, Ogden, or “Coddy,”scion of an old Boston family who had grown up in France,had recently returned to Boston to study architecture.Talented and foppish, he was determined to make his way as an architect for the rich. Edith, a society woman in a love-less marriage, was then in her early forties and had recentlypublished a handful of stories. They were each coming intotheir own and took delight in their shared passions for archi-tecture, house decoration, and travel. They also found thatthey shared attitudes toward the sumptuous lifestyles of therich in the Gilded Age.

It was in Newport, Rhode Island, that Ogden Codmanand Edith and Teddy Wharton began to see each other.Codman had been visiting there since 1884 and had openedan office in 1891. When Edith and Teddy were moving intotheir new place, Land’s End, Ogden helped Edith decorate it.

C

FACING PAGE Ogden Codman, Jr., c. 1887, and Edith

Wharton, c. 1904. THIS PAGE Frontispiece by Henry

Hutt from Newport, Our Social Capitol, by Mrs. John

King van Rensselaer, 1905.

Friendship became a catalyst for

creativity as Codman and Wharton

began their professional lives in the

mid-1890s.

1594.qxp 5/24/07 9:21 AM Page 17


both inside and outside at the same time, commenting onsociety and feeling slightly superior to it, being talented pro-fessionals as well as social players. The social scene wasindispensable to their work, but they regarded it with irony.

In redoing the Whartons’ new place, Codman put hislove of French decoration to work. The house was large andugly. (It had been designed in 1864 by Codman’s uncle, JohnHubbard Sturgis, for Samuel G. Ward.) Dark and over deco-rated, it presented a challenge to the couple, who stripped itdown and filled it with handsome furniture that Whartonbrought back from Italy. The architect and aspiring writercreated tasteful rooms with walls painted in light colors sothat the lines of the rooms, the views, and the new furniturecould be appreciated. Codman continued to help Whartonwith Land’s End for several years and later with her littlehouse on Park Avenue in New York.

She wrote him from Milan in 1895 telling him that shewas bringing back glass panels and furniture for the newhouse. “I do hope you will be an angel and have the roomready and the paint dry when we arrive.” In 1897 she exulted,“The library is a real pleasure to us both & we consider it aperfect success.” And she teased him and regaled him with injokes in a letter from Paris, “We shall be in Newport on June9th, & oh, won’t you catch it if the glass verandah isn’tready…. All I can say is that if on the 9th of June, I stumbleover paint pots and carpenter’s benches in stepping into myglass verandah for afternoon tea, the W. Starr Millers will bemerciful in their comments on you compared to what I shallsay. I shall give out that you design all Vernon’s furniture forhim, that you built Mrs. Admiral Baldwin’s house, & that itwas you who inspired the F. Vanderbilt hall & billiard room!!& if that doesn’t blast you, I’ll withhold from you all theMantua photographs and give them to Father Newton!!!!”

Even before Land’s End was completed, Edith Whartonhelped Ogden get the commission for two floors of bedroomsat The Breakers, where he used his ideas about eighteenth-century architecture to tone down the lavishambiance of Cornelius Vanderbilt’s great palace.He was thrilled to get this commission. As hereported to his mother, “Who do you suppose Ihave for a client? Teddy Wharton told me todaythat Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt wants to see me athis office at 11:30 tomorrow to talk about hisNewport house and he wants me to do part! Justthink what a client!! The richest and nicest ofthem all… I am going to thank Mrs. Wharton whobrought this about.”

Although Ogden was working for the Van-derbilts, he and Edith were not above criticizingthem. She wrote to “Coddy” on May 1, 1897, that“Teddy hasn’t yet rallied from the effect of the

Whitney house. It must indeed be a ghoul’s lair. I wish theVanderbilts didn’t retard culture so very thoroughly. They areentrenched in a sort of Thermopylae of bad taste, from whichapparently no force on earth can dislodge them.”

And while the Vanderbilts were clients for Codman, theywere also material for Wharton’s fiction. As she reported toher friend Sally Norton, another Europeanized Americanwho shunned extravagance, in the late 1890s, “The Vanderbiltentertainment was what you say—but for a novelist gather-ing documents for an American novel it was all the morevaluable, alas! Daisy Chanler summed it up when she saidthat she doubted if ‘so much money had ever been spent ona fête without producing one single effect of beauty.’”

While Wharton was writing about the lavish but emptylife and the fortunes and the greed they generated, Codmanwas experiencing some conflicts about money himself. Hetold his mother that everyone was nice to him “because CVis backing me but it is pleasant all the same.” He recognizedthat the Vanderbilts were like the nobility in Europe andcould open many doors for him. “Mr. V. drove me down tolook at my office yesterday (It is much the same as diningwith the Prince of Wales or a very good Duke).”

Codman described a telling incident in his rooms in NewYork City, when his best client came to talk business, “I havejust had a very successful day. The Vanderbilts came thismorning—My scrub woman did not and Mr. V. came beforehis time & found me making my bed, which looked frugal.Mrs. V. came later and we decided lots of things.” AlthoughCodman was always rating his acquaintances as to how com-mon or tasteless or how nice and rich they were, his feelingstoward Edith Wharton were genuine, “I wish she wouldcome home, she is not easy to replace. Certainly she is thecleverest and best friend I have ever made—and I owe all thisto her—I must say I think I have profited by her advice andit must be a pleasure to her to see it.” He was always grate-ful for Wharton's help in getting him “in” with the sort

1594.qxp 5/24/07 9:21 AM Page 18


he admired—the rich who could profit by his taste, andwhom he could profit from.

Codman and Wharton both felt that being useful to eachother was part of friendship. Besides introducing him to herfriends, Wharton advised him on how to handle clients, atone time cautioning him, “I don't want you to get into theway of shirking small jobs for big ones. If you only wouldbelieve me when I tell you it’s bad policy! The people whogive you small jobs are always the ones who are on the look-out for being shirked, & they require to beménagés much more carefully than the mil-lionaires—witness the Millers & LispenardStewart. It’s no use to say—oh, but suchpoor clients aren’t worth while. People whoare not worth while directly may be so indi-rectly, & you can never tell, till afterwards,what a small job may bring you in the wayof big jobs, nor, on the other hand, whatincalculable harm the dictum of a dissatis-fied client may do you behind your back. Ishall always preach this at you, as long aswe are on speaking terms; for I know thatsuccess lies in this direction.”

While Codman was grateful for Wharton’sadvice, he was very frank in describing her to his mother, noting her dominating personality and frequent ailments.Wharton, for her part, was grateful for what Codman gaveher—he was a kindred intelligence, a partner in projects, andsomeone who could understand and appreciate the way shesaw the world. Wharton’s letters to Codman often have aninsistent, bossy quality to them which suggests her need for his advice and attention. Sorry that he can’t come toLand’s End on a Saturday in early summer, she coaxes him“Can’t you take the late train from here to Boston, dinethere, & reach Lincoln late? or why not go to Lincoln onSunday? or Monday? or Tuesday? Perhaps this may not haveoccurred to you?”

In addition to sharing her interests in architecture anddecorating, and talking about their schemes to get himclients, Codman could also appreciate Wharton’s love oftravel, which served as an antidote for her general dislike ofthe Newport social season. A wonderful letter of June 1896records her delight, “We have just come from Turin, wherewe found some of the richest ‘pickings’ of the whole trip, &where we made an expedition out to Stupinigi, the royalhunting lodge built by Juvara during every moment of whichI simply groaned for you—I wish I could give you an idea ofit. Outside it is a charming small palace, with a central dome(like Vaux-le-Vicomte) surmounted by a splendid bronzestag. In the center under the dome is an immense ballroom,four stories high, with music galleries entirely decorated invery bold frescoes, in the style of the Villa Rotonda at

Vicenza.” They walked through at least thirty rooms, and shefound that “The Louis rooms are especially splendid; a wholesuite with walls hung in delicate embroidered silk, withscreens, furniture coverings & bed-curtains to match, & suchmirrors, & such consoles!” And she finished, “In short youcan picture nothing more gay, pimpant & charming than thewhole suite of rooms—Versailles, though of course muchgrander does not compare with it, to my view, in charm &suggestiveness.” She knew that he would enjoy the descrip-

tion, and she ended the letter, “I don't apol-ogize for this long story for I think it willinterest you.” They did see each other inEurope too, and that same year were inFrance together, at Versailles. He wrote tohis mother how he liked to spend all histime observing architecture, the wonderfulchâteaux, and houses, and he spent evenmore time in the museums than Wharton did.

While Wharton oversaw Codman’scareer and described European sights,Codman watched her evolving taste, notingthat it had improved since the decorating ofLand's End. He wrote to his mother in1897, “Her New York house will be a great

success…Just what I have always wanted to do myself. Inever saw anyone learn so quickly as she has, she gets verydifferent things from what she did when I first knew her.”

So much did these two see eye to eye on matters of stylethat they decided to write a book together. The result wasThe Decoration of Houses, written because they felt thatgood taste was missing in America. Wharton, with her strongpersonality, took charge of the project, but since she respectedCodman, and he was very fussy, she presented his ideas andher own clearly. She often scolded and prodded him to keepthings moving along; she did the writing, putting the princi-ples into her graceful literary style. She also managed tediousmatters, like indexing, contacting the publisher, and worry-ing about reviews and advertising.

Codman reported on their writing the book in early1897, “We have now written about 100 pages. Mrs.Wharton is a great help, and is very much interested. Shetakes my notes and puts them into literary form, and adds a good deal out of her own head. I think it will be a veryinteresting book and much easier reading than most of thebooks in my library. It is so very amusing to see my ideas ina literary shape.”

FACING PAGE Cornelius Vanderbilt’s house,The Breakers, Newport,

R.I.Postcard,early twentieth century. ABOVE Frontispiece designed

by Daniel Berkeley Updike for the first edition of The Decoration of

Houses by Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman, Jr., 1897.

1594.qxp 5/24/07 9:21 AM Page 19


The book’s thesis is that beautiful interiors are the resultof architectural decorating. Total remodeling of rooms isoften necessary, for superficial cosmetics—merely changingthe furniture or curtains—seldom suffice. Since the inside ofthe house is as much a part of its organic structure as the out-side, its treatment should be based on proportion and bal-ance. Rooms should be useful as well as beautiful.

They wrote the book to counteract accepted decoratingpractices. As Wharton said later, architects considered interiordecoration “a branch of dressmaking” and “left the field toupholsterers, who crammed every room with curtains, lam-brequins, jardinieres of artificial plants, wobbly velvet-coveredtables littered with silver gew-gaws, and festoons of lace onmantelpieces and dressing tables.” Since childhood, Edith hadbeen dismayed by the taste of her class. Instead of learninggood principles during their European tours, New York ma-trons returned home with cheap imitations of “old masters”and “a few monsters in the way of modern Venetian furniture”for their narrow brownstone rooms, in which “SalvatorRosas and Domenichinos gloomed so incongruously.”

In The Decoration of Houses, the writers point out thatItalian Renaissance architecture was ideally suited for courtspectacles, but that the style perfected by the French is moreappropriate to the way we live now. The anti-American, anti-nouveau riche sentiments that Wharton and Codman expressarose out of their contempt for the architecture of the GildedAge. Codman wrote about the work of Richard MorrisHunt, with whom he had worked on The Breakers, “TheGerry House is too vulgar. Really, New Yorkers have themost marvellous bad taste. Yet I see great improvement. Nowold Hunt is dead, one great source of rank vulgarity is driedup—for he really was an awful old Vulgarian—.” Theauthors felt too that if the rich demanded good architecture,

the poor would eventually get it as well: “Every good mould-ing, every carefully studied detail, exacted by those who canafford to indulge their taste, will in time find its way to thecarpenter-built cottage.”

In several of the stories Edith Wharton wrote in the1890s, she described the kind of experiences she loved toshare with Codman—the great joy she had in seeing trulybeautiful houses, palaces, rooms, and churches in France andItaly, and her ambivalence about society. In “The Fullness ofLife,” the central character is a young woman who loves art,architecture, poetry and painting and longs to share herinterests with a soul mate. Her husband is completely unsym-pathetic. Wharton admitted that the story was autobio-graphical, and it suggests the sadness and loneliness she wasfeeling in her marriage to Teddy Wharton.

The year after The Decoration of Houses was published,Wharton began The Valley of Decision, and in this novel herlove of the art and culture of the eighteenth century that sheshared with Codman saturates the book. While writing it,she was becoming increasingly disenchanted with Newportand began to visit Lenox, Massachusetts, the fashionableresort in the Berkshires. She soon bought 155 acres of land,where she could use all her ideas on rooms, spatial relations,and beautiful interiors in building a house from scratch. Butin the process of working with Codman on the design, thetwo had a falling out. Codman had raised his rates from fifteento twenty-five percent, and Teddy refused to pay this fee. Thisstarted a fight, the details of which Codman reported to hismother, “Teddy announced that he did not want to pay theregular commission!! & when I declined to work for less saidI was impossible to get on with! When I told him he was noteasy to get on with he said I was very unpopular.” Years later,in 1914, Codman was still fuming over the rift, “I think onthe whole it was a great blessing that they took their housefrom me, although I did not think so at the time…Really, itis no use trying to work for people who are trying to makeone dollars worth look like five dollars worth…”

The Whartons hired another architect, Francis L.V.Hoppin, but nonetheless asked Codman to do the interiors.Another falling out ensued, which led to a legal proceedingover payment for the painted panels in Edith’s boudoir. Thefriendship broke off in 1905—ostensibly over the bill for theboudoir panels—but Wharton was moving on. WhenCodman became engaged to be married to Leila Webb, hewrote to Wharton, and she never responded. He bore agrudge; their lives ran parallel but did not cross again untiljust before World War I, when they were both living in Paris.Codman’s letters to his mother often reported “Whartonnews” during these years—gossip about Teddy’s sickness, theaffairs of Teddy and Edith’s brothers, Harry and Freddy, andjokes at Edith Wharton’s expense.

1594.qxp 5/24/07 9:21 AM Page 20


In the 1920s and ‘30s, Codman and Wharton began tosee each other again, visiting one another’s country houses inFrance and sharing advice on gardening. She had gone on towrite many novels and volumes of stories. He had designedsome twenty-one houses and remodeled others. After his wifedied in 1910, he lived in France and in New York. In1929–31, he finally built himself a villa, La Léopolda, in thesouth of France, where he created the house of his dreamsand applied many of the concepts he and Edith had discussedso many years before.

On April 18, 1937, Ogden Codman wrote EdithWharton about the possibility of a second edition of TheDecoration of Houses, “Of course there has been very greatprogress in taste since 1896, but from my own personal expe-rience, there is a great deal more of what I might call ‘TheEternal Verities’ in the book, than the mere ousting of theHouse dressmaker. I read it over again very carefully when Iwas planning ‘La Léopolda’ with the result that I built theItalian Saloon, a cube of Thirty Feet, cutting out whatseemed to me like a not very necessary bedroom and bathroom on the first floor, and giving me the most magnificentroom to decorate of my whole architectural career. This Iowe entirely to re-reading that book for which I am extremelygrateful. It still seems to me a book that most architects, andall their clients should buy,—‘To read, mark, learn, inwardlydigest and profit thereby.’ As the book is entirely out of print,I want a second edition to put it within everybody’s reach.”

Always enthusiastic about another project, she replied,“Your arguments in favor of a new edition of ‘TheDecoration of Houses’ seem to me very convincing, especiallyif Batsford thinks it a good idea. I willingly fall in with yoursuggestions which seem to me excellent.” But on her way tovisit him, she fell ill and had to be transported home in anambulance. Codman wrote to a friend some weeks later,“The news from Mrs. Wharton is more encouraging, if shecan only rest and take life easier, but she is so accustomed to

social activity, that it will be very hard for her to keep reallyquiet and rest.” A week before Wharton died in August, hereported that “she was so very ill, much worse than she hadbeen, and not expected to live, it is too sad.” As a testimonyto their friendship, their book is still in print.

FACING PAGE Interior at Land’s End, Edith and Teddy Wharton’s

house in Newport. ABOVE Edith Wharton’s house, The Mount,

in Lenox, Massachusetts. Postcard, early twentieth century. BELOW

Ogden Codman’s estate, La Léopolda, in Villefranche-sur-Mer,

France, 1929-31.

Historic New England’s Codman Estate is open the firstand third Saturdays of the month through October 6. For more information, please call (781) 259-8843 or visit our web site at www.HistoricNewEngland.org.Admission free to members of Historic New England.

The photograph of Edith Wharton and her lettersillustrated on page 16, as well as quotations from her cor-respondence, are reprinted by permission of the EdithWharton Estate and the Watkins/Loomis Agency.

1594.qxp 5/24/07 9:21 AM Page 21


RIGHT All a beginning

golfer needed to partici-

pate in this popular

new sport were four to

five clubs and a putter.

FAR RIGHT The Country Club’s

elegant clubhouse in Brook-

line,Massachusetts, provided

a home away from home

where members and their

families could dine and enter-

tain.

R E C R E A T I O N

olf took sometime to catch on inthe United States,but once it did, its

devotees pursued the sport withpassion. Played in Scotland asearly as the 1400s, golf made briefappearances in this country in theseventeenth and eighteenth centurieswithout gaining many supporters. Inthe 1880s, however, the game explodedin popularity. In 1890, a Boston paperreported, “The royal game of golf wasplayed on local grounds yesterday, forit is believed, the first time in the historyof the city.” These early swings weretaken at Franklin Park, which six yearslater became the site of the second pub-lic course in the country. Although theSt. Andrews Golf Club of Yonkers,New York, is generally recognized asthe site of the nation’s first golf course,New England, and greater Boston in

particular, quickly embraced thesport. By 1902, Massachusettshad more golf courses than anyother state.

While most country clubstoday have golf courses, thiswas not the case for the ear-liest clubs, the first ofwhich was The Country

Club in Brookline, Mass-achusetts, organized in 1882. Countryclubs in the late nineteenth century typ-ically offered an escape from city life,providing an oasis of green spacewhere members could enjoy outdoorsports such as horseback riding, racing,and polo. The Brookline Country Clubemphasized coaching excursions andhorse racing. The club was well-estab-lished as a haven for equestrian sports,when in 1892 it laid out the first nineholes of a golf course, resulting in con-flict between golfers and riders. From

the golfer’s perspective, according toOuting Magazine, “the necessity ofmaintaining a race-track and steeple-chase course over parts of which thegolfers must play has hitherto kept The Country Club from having ideallinks.” Ultimately, coaching and horse-racing gave way to golf at the club, andin 1899 the course expanded to a fulleighteen holes. In 1913, the club wasthe site of amateur Francis Ouimet’sdramatic U.S. Open win over the sport’slegendary British masters Harry Vardonand Ted Ray.

The Country Club in Brooklineserved as the home course for manyBoston residents, but enthusiasm forthe sport led to the founding of manygolf clubs in surrounding towns andalong the coast. In 1899 Outing Mag-azine chronicled the explosive popu-larity of golf in Boston by describingtwenty-nine courses within a twelve-

G

in MassachusettsGolf Tees off

1594.qxp 5/24/07 9:21 AM Page 22

Turn-of-the-centurygolf equipment, although recog-

nizable by twenty-first century play-ers, featured different materials andcolorful names. The first golf clubshad handmade wood shafts, usuallyof hickory. Woods were known asthe driver, brassie, and spoon, and aset of irons typically included amashie and a niblick. The steel-shafted club was introduced by 1910but was not approved for use by theUSGA until 1924. Golf balls wereoriginally made of gutta-percha, ahard but easily molded substancederived from the sap of a Malaysiantree. They were replaced by thewound rubber core ball in the earlytwentieth century. The MassachusettsPloughman and New England Journalof Agriculture featured regular knit-ting projects for golf stockings, hats,and gloves.


mile radius of the city. Newton washome to six courses, including the Brae Burn Golf Club, described as having “an excellent variety of hazards,the natural features being admirablyutilized.” Golf clubs multipliedon the north and southshores of Massachu-setts to serve wealthyBostonians who leftthe city in favor ofcoastal areas in the summer. Sincethe North Shorebecame accessibleby steamboat and railservice in the early nine-teenth century, golf courseswere later additions to well-established summer communities.

Golf enthusiasts loudly touted the sport’s contribution to physical fit-ness and overall good health, benefitsthat were widely embraced by earlytwentieth-century women. In the eraof the “new woman,” it became morecommon to find young society womenattending college, taking more activeroles outside of the home, and spend-ing leisure hours on the links. WellesleyCollege promoted women’s partici-pation in outdoor sports by makingathletics a required activity. The Curtissisters, Margaret and Harriot, (cousinsof Historic New England founderWilliam Sumner Appleton) were amongthe best known of New England’s

ABOVE Part of golf’s appeal was that men and women could play the

game together. BELOW Sheep performed groundskeeping tasks at

many early golf courses. Here, they graze at the Essex County

Club, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts, the oldest North

Shore golf club, which opened in 1893.

women golfers. As women of means,they could afford the time and expenseto devote to such pursuits. Their tour-nament exploits were regularly reportedin The Boston Globe. Harriot won the

U.S. Women’s Amateur tourna-ment in 1906. The next

year, she faced her sisterhead-to-head, eventu-

ally losing the titleto her. MargaretCurtis was the U.S.Women’s Amateurchampionship again

in 1911 and 1912.Long after leaving

competitive tournamentplay, the Curtis sisters con-

tinued to enjoy and promotegolf. Their interest in and love of golfparallels its beginnings and tremen-dous growth in the United States. Asmembers of two of the earliest golfclubs in Massachusetts, The CountryClub and the Essex County Club, theywere among the first generation to cele-brate golf and solidify its popularity inNew England.

—Jennifer PustzMuseum Historian

Answer to color sudoku puzzle on page 11.

David C

armack

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M U S E U M S H O P

Beauport: The Sleeper-McCann House Text by Nancy Curtis and Richard Nylander, essays by Joseph Garland and Paul Hollister. Second edition.Beauport, hailed in its time as “the most beautiful house in America,” is the survivingmasterpiece of one of America’s most talented interior designers, Henry Davis Sleeper.Filled with dramatic contrasts, rich color, and playful compositions of decorative artobjects, it launched Sleeper’s career as a designer. More than seventy-five color photo-graphs capture the magical effects he created; the engaging text places his creation in thecontext of his time. SC $29.95, Special Member price $24

The Decoration of Houses Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman, Jr. New edition.This is an expanded edition of the original text of The Decoration of Houses. Its carefullyreasoned chapters on fireplaces, ceilings and floors, and halls and stairs are of great valueto professionals and amateurs interested in interior design. Additions to the album of renderings and photographs in the tradition of Wharton and Codman include a numberof recent works and a portfolio of color plates new to the expanded edition. SC $25,Special Member price $20

Books related to stories in this issue

The Historic New England Book Store

To order, please call 617-227-3957, ext.237. Shipping charges and applicable taxes apply.HC = hard cover SC = soft cover

The Complete Guide to CollectingHooked Rugs:Unrolling the SecretsJesse A. Turbayne.HC $39.95, Special Member price $35

Fabrics andWallpapers forHistoric BuildingsJane C. Nylander and Richard C. Nylander. New edition. HC $45, Special Memberprice $40

Redware: America’s Folk Art Pottery Kevin McConnell. 3rd edition, revised. SC $12.95, SpecialMember price $11

Toile: The Storied Fabrics of Europe and America Michele Palmer. HC $34.95, SpecialMember price $31

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News New England & Beyond

Preserving a historic farmsteadThe Southwick-Daniels Farm in Blackstone,Massachusetts, is the seventy-fourth propertyto be accepted into Historic New England’sStewardship Program, which protects privately-owned properties. One of the most intact farm-steads in the area, the farm is a significant his-toric landmark within the Blackstone RiverValley National Heritage Corridor. The farm-house and its outbuildings, which maintaintheir original character, are important examples of nineteenth-century vernacular archi-tecture and workmanship. The structures include the original farmhouse, the oldest part ofwhich dates to 1791; the main barn, dating between 1850 and 1875; a c.1830 corn crib;a c. 1860 carriage shed; an 1870 cider mill; and an early twentieth-century hen house.

MassachusettsRocky Hill Meeting House, AmesburySunday, May 20, 12–4 pm Saturday, June 30, 12–4 pm

Cooper Frost Austin House, CambridgeSunday, May 20, 12–4 pmSunday, August 12, 12–4 pm

Pierce House, DorchesterSunday, June 24, 1–4 pmWednesday, October 17, 1–4 pmSaturday, October 20, 1–4 pm

Dole-Little House, NewburySunday, May 20, 12–4 pmSaturday, July 28, 1–5 pm

Swett-Ilsley House, NewburyFirst Saturdays, June–October, 11 am–3 pm

Quincy House, QuincySaturday, June 9, 1–4 pmSaturday, August 18, 1–4 pm

Boardman House, SalemFirst Saturdays, June–October, 11 am–3 pm

Open hours for study propertiesWe hope you will find time to visit Historic New England’s study properties, many of which are open for extended hours this season. They include ten houses dating from the first period of European settlement and an eighteenth-century meeting house, rare sur-vivors of early building types that were once common in the region. Admission is free to members of Historic New England. Please visit www.HistoricNewEngland.org for additional information.

Gedney House, SalemFirst Saturdays, June–October, 11 am–3 pm

Merwin House, StockbridgeSaturday, June 2, 11 am–4 pmSaturday, December 1, 11 am–4 pm

Browne House, WatertownSaturday, June 2, 12–4 pmSaturday, September 29, 12–4 pm

New HampshireGilman GarrisonSaturday, June 2, 11 am–4 pmSaturday, August 18, 11 am–4 pm

Rhode IslandArnold House, LincolnSaturday, June 2, 10 am–3 pmSaturday, September 15, 10 am–5 pmSunday, September 16, 10 am–3 pmSunday, October 14, 12–4 pm

Clemence–Irons House, JohnstonSunday, October 7, 11 am–4 pm

RecladThe 1693 Arnold House in Lincoln,Rhode Island, recently underwent clap-board restoration and window conser-vation. Historic New England’s propertycare team paid special attention to doc-umenting the earlier 1952 renovationsand were able to reuse some of the salvaged nails. They chose quartersawnclapboards made of white oak as themost durable and historically accuratematerial for the clapboards. This photograph shows the Arnold Houselast fall while the project was underway. The paler clapboards on the lowersection were installed several monthsearlier and had time to weather. Thewindows were replaced after the photograph was taken. (Please see chartat left for open hours this season.)


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141 Cambridge StreetBoston MA 02114-2702

Presented by theSociety for the Preservationof New England Antiquities

Non-Profit OrganizationU.S. Postage

PAIDBoston, Massachusetts

Permit No. 58621

Mrs. Brown and her sister, JaneAdams, were both thrilled to learn thattheir mother’s drawing would be pub-lished and preserved for posterity inthe Library and Archives. They havegenerously supplied us with biographi-cal information and other documenta-tion about their mother’s career. Thus,in a somewhat roundabout manner,sleuthing, the Internet, and good luckhave come together to provide a lastingrecord of a talented artist.

—Lorna CondonCurator of Library and Archives

his large colored drawingsigned “Eleanor Pratt”caught my eye immediatelywhen I saw it at a recent

antique show. In addition to its soph-isticated design, the work spoke to so many of Historic New England’scollecting interests—twentieth-centurydesign, advertising, furnishings—that Iimmediately purchased it for theLibrary and Archives.

Next, I embarked upon a processof investigation. I began by contactingthe Paine Furniture Company, only tolearn that the company’s archive wasno longer intact. A Google search pro-duced a reference to an obituary for anartist by the name of Eleanor (Pratt)Humphrey in the Lowell Sun. TheLowell Public Library retrieved theclipping, where I found the names ofMrs. Humphrey’s survivors. Returningto the Internet for phone numbers, Ilocated Carolyn Humphrey Brown inNew Hampshire, who confirmed thather mother was the creator of thedrawing we had acquired.

T

A C Q U I S I T I O N S

Research Zigzag

RIGHT Design for an advertisement

for the Paine Furniture Company,

Boston, by Eleanor Pratt (1908–2002).

After attending Wheaton College in

Norton, Massachusetts, and the Vesper

George School of Art, Pratt worked

as a freelance commercial artist in

Boston in the 1930s. Her other work

included etchings, portrait drawings,

fabric designs, and decorative painting.

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Historic New England Summer 2007

Documents

Transcript of Historic New England Summer 2007