Houses

Augustus Saint-Gaudens House, Cornish, New Hampshire (2)

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The home of Augustus Saint-Gaudens in Cornish, around the early 20th century. Image from The Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Volume 2 (1913).

The house in 2019:

As explained in more detail in the previous post, this house was the home of sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, who used it as a summer home starting in 1885, and as his full-time residence from 1900 until his death in 1907. The house itself is far older, dating back to the early 19th century, but Saint-Gaudens made substantial improvements to both the house and the grounds. Here in this scene, this included piazzas on both sides of the house, a dormer window above the front door, and stepped parapets next to the chimneys. He also planted Lombardy poplars at the corners of the house, and a honey locust to the right of the front steps.

The first photo was probably taken soon after Saint-Gaudens’s death, and it was published in his biography in 1913, which was written by his son Homer. In 1919, his widow Augusta established the Augustus Saint-Gaudens Memorial, and two years later she transferred the property to this organization, which preserved the house and grounds. Then, in 1964 the site became the Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park, and it was subsequently acquired by the National Park Service.

Today, more than a century after the first photo was taken, this scene has hardly changed, except for the loss of the Lombardy poplars. The exterior of the house still looks essentially the same as it did in the early 20th century, and even the honey locust is still here, although it has grown substantially larger than the house. The site is still run by the National Park Service, and it remains the only National Park System unit in the state of New Hampshire.

Augustus Saint-Gaudens House, Cornish, New Hampshire

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The home of Augustus Saint-Gaudens in Cornish, around 1885. Image from The Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Volume 1 (1913).

The scene in 2019:

Augustus Saint-Gaudens was one of the most prominent sculptors in American history, with a body of work that includes many important public monuments, along with the designs for several United States coins. Born in Ireland to an Irish mother and French father, Saint-Gaudens came to America in 1848 when he was six months old, and he subsequently grew up in New York City. Then, in the late 1860s he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and by the mid-1870s he had established himself as a successful sculptor.

It was a good time to be a sculptor in the United States at the time, given the large number of Civil War monuments that were being built around the country. Many of Saint-Gaudens’s most celebrated works were created in honor of Union heroes from the war, including statues of David G. Farragut, John A. Logan, Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, William T. Sherman, and Abraham Lincoln. In addition to these statues, his other major works included Diana for Madison Square Garden, The Puritan in Springfield, Massachusetts, and the Adams Memorial in Washington, D.C. Near the end of his life, Saint-Gaudens was also commissioned to redesign American coinage, and he supplied designs for new $10 and $20 coins before his death in 1907.

In 1885, in the midst of his career, Saint-Gaudens came to Cornish for the summer, at the suggestion of his friend Charles Cotesworth Beaman. A prominent attorney, Beaman owned several farms in Cornish, including this property, which was known as Huggins’ Folly. Saint-Gaudens and his rented it for the summer, and the first photo was taken on the front lawn at some point during the summer. In the photo, Augustus Saint-Gaudens himself is kneeling in the lower right corner. Standing in the foreground is his wife Augusta, and further to the left is their son Homer, who would have been about five years old at the time. Just to the left of Homer is Saint-Gaudens’s assistant Frederick William MacMonnies, and furthest to the left is his younger brother Louis Saint-Gaudens. Both of these men would become accomplished sculptors in their own right, and MacMonnies also had a successful career as a painter.

The Saint-Gaudens family would return here to Cornish for subsequent summers, and in 1891 he purchased the property from Beaman for $2,500 plus a bronze bust. He renamed it Aspet, after his father’s birthplace in France, and over the years he made a number of improvements, including landscaping the grounds and constructing studios and other outbuildings. As part of the landscaping, a honey locust was planted just to the right of the front steps, probably around 1886. This tree is still here, and now towers over the house in the center of the 2019 photo. Saint-Gaudens also made alterations to the main house, some of which are visible in this scene, including piazzas on either side of the house, a dormer window above the front door, and stepped parapets to replace the earlier sloped ones.

Saint-Gaudens moved into this house year-round in 1900, and he lived here until his death in 1907. This period marked the heyday of the Cornish Art Colony, which flourished in large part because of Saint Gaudens’s influence. During this time, dozens of prominent artists and other public figures spent summers in Cornish and the surrounding towns. Even Woodrow Wilson spent time in Cornish during his presidency, leasing the home of novelist Winston Churchill. The importance of the art colony steadily diminished after Saint-Gaudens’s death, but the town would continue to see prominent residents over the course of the 20th century, including writer J. D. Salinger, who died in Cornish in 2010.

In the meantime, this property remained in the Saint-Gaudens family until 1921, when Augusta transferred it to the Augustus Saint-Gaudens Memorial, an organization that she had established two years earlier. It was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1962, and then in 1964 it became the Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park, with the National Park Service acquiring the property a year later. It has remained open to the public ever since, and it features landscaped grounds and gardens, walking trails, several galleries, and one of Saint-Gaudens’s studio buildings. The main house, shown here in this scene, is also open for tours, and its appearance remains much the same as it did when Saint-Gaudens lived here more than a century ago.

Alexander House Staircase, Springfield, Mass

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The main staircase of the Alexander House in Springfield, on December 2, 1938. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Historic American Buildings Survey collection.

The scene in 2019:

As discussed in more detail in the previous post, the Alexander House is one of the oldest and most architecturally-significant houses in Springfield. It was built in 1811 by local contractor Simon Sanborn, based on designs by prominent architect Asher Benjamin, and it features an unusual floor plan with no front door. Instead, the house has two side doors, with a hallway running the width of the house between them. On one end of this hallway, at what was once the east entrance, is the main staircase, which is shown here. It is curved, with an elliptical appearance when viewed from the top, and it is perhaps the house’s single most striking interior feature.

The house had several important owners over the years, including famed portrait artist Chester Harding, who lived here in the early 1830s, and Mayor Henry Alexander, Jr., who lived here from 1857 until his death in 1878. The Alexander family remained here for many years, until his surviving child, Amy B. Alexander, died in 1938. The first photo was taken less than a year after her death, at a time when the house’s future was still uncertain. It was nearly moved to Storrowton Village on the Big E fairgrounds in West Springfield, but instead it was purchased in 1939 by the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, which restored and preserved the house.

The Alexander House has been moved twice in its history. It was originally located on the north side of State Street, between Elliot and Spring Streets, but it was moved a few hundred feet on this lot in 1874 in order to remove drainage issues. The second move came in 2003, when it was moved around the corner to its current location on the east side of Elliot Street, in order to make room for the new federal courthouse on State Street. Because of this, these two photos were not taken in the same physical location, even though they show the same scene inside the house.

Today, the Alexander House is no longer owned by the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities. The organization, now known as Historic New England, sold the property soon after its 2004 move. It is now privately owned and used for office space, but it has retained its historic appearance on both the interior and exterior, including its distinctive staircase, which has hardly changed since the first photo was taken more than 80 years ago.

Alexander House Interior, Springfield, Mass

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The east room on the first floor of the Alexander House in Springfield, on December 2, 1938. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Historic American Buildings Survey collection.

The room in 2019:

The Alexander House is one of the oldest surviving houses in Springfield, and perhaps the city’s best example of Federal style architecture. It was built in 1811, and it originally stood on the north side of State Street, between Elliot and Spring Streets. However, it has been moved twice over the years, first in 1874 when it was moved a few hundred feet because of drainage issues. Then, a more substantial move occurred in 2003, when it was moved around the corner to Elliot Street so that its old lot could be redeveloped as a federal courthouse. As a result, while these two photos show the same room, they were taken at different locations, with the first one on State Street and the second one at the house’s current lot on Elliot Street.

The original owner of this house was merchant James Byers, who lived here from 1811 until 1820, when he sold it to Colonel Israel Trask. The house was briefly owned by prominent portrait artist Chester Harding, but he sold it back to Trask in 1832. Trask died three years later, but his family owned it until 1857. The next owner, and current namesake of the house, was banker and local politician Henry Alexander, Jr. He was the president of Springfield Bank, and he also held a number of elected offices, including city alderman from 1857 to 1858, mayor from 1864 to 1865, and state senator from 1865 to 1868. Alexander named the house Linden Hall, and it was during his ownership that the house was moved for the first time. He lived here until his death in 1878, and the house remained in the Alexander family for the next 60 years, until the death of his last surviving child, Amy B. Alexander, in 1938.

The Alexander House was designed by prominent architect Asher Benjamin, and it was built by local contractor Simon Sanborn, who was responsible for many of the fine early 19th century homes in Springfield. In a rather unusual arrangement for a New England home, the house lacks a front door. Instead, it has two side entrances, which are connected by a hallway that runs the width of the house. At the front of the house are two parlors, one of which is shown here in these two photos. This particular room—located on the right side of the house when viewing it from the street—originally faced southeast towards the corner of State and Spring Streets, although in the house’s current orientation it faces southwest.

The first photo was taken less than a year after Amy Alexander’s death, as part of an effort to document the house for the Historic American Buildings Survey. At the time, the future of the house was still uncertain. One proposal would have involved moving it across the river to Storrowton Village at the Big E fairgrounds, but this was ultimately abandoned because of the challenges involved in such a move. Instead, in 1939 the house was acquired by the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities. Now known as Historic New England, this organization has restored and maintained many historic houses across the region, and it owned the Alexander House until shortly after the 2003 relocation. Since then, it has been privately owned and rented out for office space, but it retains its historic appearance on both the exterior and interior, and it stands as one of the city’s most historic and architecturally-significant houses.

Chestnut Street near Ninth Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

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The view along the north side of Chestnut Street, taken looking west from near the corner of Ninth Street, around 1859. Image courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia, Frederick De Bourg Richards Photograph Collection.

The scene in 2019:

The first photo shows a row of houses that were built around the late 18th or early 19th centuries for some of Philadelphia’s wealthiest residents. The houses were located on the north side of Chestnut Street, about halfway between 9th and 10th Streets, and they range from 919 Chestnut Street on the far right, to 925 Chestnut on the far left. At the time of their construction, this section of the city was predominantly residential, but this had begun to change by the time the first photo was taken a half century later. Some of these houses, particularly the one on the far right, had already been converted to commercial use, and over the next few decades more would see similar conversions, or would be demolished to make way for new, larger buildings.

As shown in the first photo, the house on the right was the Markoe House, a boarding house that had, at one point, been the residence of John Markoe. It had been built around 1810,and was designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe, a prominent architect whose other works included the United States Capitol. The Markoe family lived here until around 1840, when they evidently fell on hard times and sold the property.

The house was converted into a boarding house, which was named for its original owners. In its early years the Markoe House had several prominent guests, as noted in contemporary newspapers. Senator Alexander Porter of Louisiana stayed here during a visit to Philadelphia in 1843, and in 1844 and 1845 Mirabeau Lamar, the former president of Texas, stayed here on at least two separate occasions. At the time, Texas was still an independent nation, and on the second visit, he was accompanied by Edwin Ward Moore, the commander-in-chief of the Texas Navy. The Markoe House would remain a boarding house here for more than 20 years after the first photo was taken, and it even underwent a significant renovation in 1869. However, it was ultimately demolished in 1881 to build a new office building for the Philadelphia Record.

Aside from the Markoe House, many of the other houses along this section of Chestnut Street were undergoing changes by the time the first photo was taken. In 1860, about a year after the photo was taken, the building immediately to the left of the Markoe House, at 921 Chestnut, was converted into offices for the Penn Mutual Insurance Company. This left, according to an 1860 newspaper article, only two or three buildings on Chestnut Street east of Tenth Street that were exclusively residential.

One of these exceptions was the house at 925 Chestnut Street, which is partially visible on the far left side of the photo. This was the home of General George Cadwalader, who served in the U.S. Army during the Mexican-American War. Shortly after the first photo was taken, Cadwalader returned to the Army upon the outbreak of the Civil War, and served in the Union army throughout the duration of the war. He lived here until at least the early 1870s, making him perhaps one of the last owners of a single-family residence on this part of Chestnut Street. During the 1870 census he lived here with his wife Frances and four servants, and he was very wealthy, with an estate valued at $600,000 at the time, or about $12.5 million today.

Today, more than 160 years after the first photo was taken, there are no surviving buildings from that photo here in this scene. All of them were likely demolished in the late 19th or early 20th centuries, and they were definitely gone by the 1930s, when this block of Chestnut Street became the site of two Depression-era federal buildings. On the left is the former Federal Reserve Bank Building, which was completed in 1935, and on the right is the Nix Federal Building, completed six years later. Both of these buildings are still standing here, as shown in the 2019 photo, although the former Federal Reserve Bank Building is now occupied by Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.

Keene Mansion, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

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The Keene Mansion at the northwest corner of Tenth and Chestnut Streets in Philadelphia, on March 5, 1860. Image courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia, Frederick De Bourg Richards Photograph Collection.

The scene in 2019:

The three-story brick house in the first photo was completed around 1815 as the home of Major David Lenox, a Revolutionary War officer who became a prosperous merchant after the war. Lenox had also held several government positions during the late 18th century, including as U.S. Marshal for the District of Pennsylvania and as a diplomat to the United Kingdom. He lived here for a little over a decade, until his death in 1828, and after his wife Tacy’s death in 1834 the property went to her niece, Sallie Lukens Keene.

Keene was still living here when the first photo was taken in 1860, having carefully maintained the original appearance of the house, including its exterior architectural details and its interior furniture. However, by this point the city had begun to grow up around the elegant mansion, which was joined here by less fashionable buildings, including a billiards hall across the street on the far left side of the photo.

Sally Keene died in 1866, and her heirs subsequently sold the property, which had become valuable commercial real estate. The old house was demolished in 1872, and the site was redeveloped as the offices of the New York Mutual Life Insurance Company. This building was completed in 1873 and subsequently expanded in the early 1890s with the addition of the top three floors. It is still standing here today, and although it is much different than the Federal-style mansion that it replaced, the building has become an important landmark in its own right, having been added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.