Overlooking a prospect of farm and pleasure grounds, this gentleman's country seat was a powerful force in the lives of five generations of the Codman family. In the 1790s, John Codman carried out extensive improvements to the original 1740 Georgian house and surrounding grounds. Each generation of Codmans to live here left their mark, and the estate that was originally a country retreat gradually came to symbolize the family's distinguished past. The interiors, richly furnished with portraits, memorabilia, and art works collected in Europe, preserve the decorative schemes of every era, including those of noted interior designer Ogden Codman, Jr. The grounds feature a hidden Italianate garden, c. 1900, with perennial beds, statuary, and a reflecting pool filled with waterlilies, as well as an English cottage garden, c. 1930.

The house offers tours and educational and recreational programs.

Cogswell's Grant was the summer home of Bertram K. and Nina Fletcher Little, preeminent collectors of American decorative arts in the mid 20th century. Through her research and innumerable publications, Mrs. Little charted new areas of American folk art (which she preferred to call "country arts"), such as decorative painting, floor coverings, boxes, and New England pottery. In 1937, the Littles purchased this 18th-century farmhouse overlooking the Essex River as a family retreat and place to entertain. They restored it carefully, trying to preserve original 18th-century finishes and carefully documenting their work. In more than 50 years of collecting, they sought works of strong, even quirky character, and in particular favored objects with their original finishes and New England histories. They decorated the house for visual delight rather than historic accuracy. The result is rich in atmosphere and crowded with collections of things—primitive paintings, redware, painted furniture, stacked Shaker boxes, weather vanes, and decoys—that have since come to define the country look.

The house offers tours.

The 1683 Pierce House is a rare known surviving example in the Boston area of a 17th century or First Period house. It documents period building practices, and the tastes and housing needs of one family, the Pierces, over more than three centuries. At different times, family members expanded and adapted their dwelling to meet new demands for space, function, comfort, privacy, and cleanliness.

The house offers tours and educational and recreational programs.

The Cooper-Frost-Austin House is clearly documented as the oldest dwelling still standing in the City of Cambridge. Built by Samuel Cooper in 1681, the house was one of the earliest examples of an integral lean-to "half house." Other original features include a pilaster chimney and a facade gable.

The home offers tours.

The Otis House Museum exemplifies the elegant life led by Boston's governing class after the American Revolution. Harrison Gray Otis made a fortune developing nearby Beacon Hill, served as a Representative in Congress, and later was Mayor of Boston. He and his wife Sally were noted for their frequent and lavish entertaining. This was the first of three houses designed for the Otises by their friend Charles Bulfinch, the architect of the Massachusetts State House. Built in 1796, its design reflects the proportions and delicate detail of the Federal style, which Bulfinch introduced to Boston. The interior provides insights into social, business, and family life, as well as the role played by household servants. The restoration of the Otis House, with its brilliantly colored wallpapers and carpeting, and high-style furnishings, is based on meticulous historical and scientific research.

The house offers tours, research library access, and recreational and educational programs.

The Rocky Hill Meeting House is, by far, the best-preserved example of an original 18th-century meeting house interior in New England. It was built in 1785, replacing a c. 1715 meeting house for the West Parish of Salisbury. It was strategically placed along the only road that crossed (via ferry) the swift Powow River and led travelers to the Salisbury Point area and onward towards Portsmouth. In fact, George Washington paused here to greet the townspeople on his northward journey in 1789. Rocky Hill has survived with its original fittings and finishes intact. The pews have never been painted, while the marbleized pulpit and pillars supporting the galleries still boast their original paint. In addition, the original 18th-century hardware survives throughout the building.

The house offers tours.

Overlooking a once-thriving waterfront, the Sayward-Wheeler House was the home of Jonathan Sayward, a local merchant and civic leader, who remodeled and furnished the 1718 house in the 1760s according to his own conservative taste. In the early 20th century, the house was refurbished for use as a summer residence, with fresh wallpapers and white-painted woodwork, but the original furnishings and family portraits remained in place. Today, the house mirrors the fortunes of a coastal village in the transition from trade to tourism.

The house offers tours and educational and recreational programs.

The Nickels-Sortwell House, whose elegant facade dominates the main street of Wiscasset, was built in 1807 by Captain William Nickels, a ship owner and trader. The architecture recalls the period when shipbuilding and the maritime trade brought prosperity and sophisticated tastes to this riverside community.

The house offers tours and educational and recreational programs.

Built on the top of a hill overlooking the Sheepscot River, Castle Tucker presents a vivid record of Wiscasset history. Judge Silas Lee built this Federal-style mansion at the peak of prosperity, when the town was the busiest port east of Boston. Lee's death in 1814, combined with the stunning effect of the Jefferson Embargo, forced his widow to sell. The house passed through a succession of hands until 1858, when Captain Richard Tucker, scion of a Wiscasset shipping family, bought the property, updated the interiors, and added a dramatic two-story porch to the front. Shortly after, he brought a shipload of fashionable furnishings from Boston and moved in with his young bride. The couple raised five children here, while Captain Tucker oversaw various business ventures including the wharves and iron foundry just below the house. In 1871, however, his fortunes collapsed. Renovations and lighthearted family entertainments gave way to subsistence farming and taking in paying guests. After Tucker's death, his daughter Jane returned from New York, bringing with her a passion for Japanese and exotic decoration. Fortunately, she, and later her niece, took an avid interest in preserving the house and contents, making few changes to the decorating schemes. Their dedication preserved Castle Tucker much as it appeared in the late 19th century.

The house offers tours and educational and recreational programs.

In 1796, young Daniel Marrett, a recent Harvard graduate, moved to Standish to become the town parson. The grand house he purchased reflected his status as the community's leading citizen. Over the years, his children and grandchildren enlarged and updated the house, but left unchanged many furnishings and interior arrangements as relics of the past. They preserved the southwest parlor exactly as it had appeared on the occasion of a family wedding in 1847. In 1889, the family celebrated the house's centennial by refurbishing several of the rooms with reproduction heirloom wallpapers and bed hangings. Today, the visitor can see the layering of eras and tastes that occurs when a family resides in one house for three generations. The Marrett sisters' extensive perennial garden, which they laid out in the 1920s and 1930s, has been restored.

The house offers tours and educational and recreational programs.