Built by Stephen Swett in 1670, the original portion of the house was constructed on a single-room plan with chimney bay and faced south. It was enlarged and amended in several stages until 1756.
The house offers tours.
Built around 1715 with materials salvaged from an earlier structure, the Dole-Little House was constructed for Richard Dole, a cattleman. The house was built on a two-room, central-chimney plan with a small kitchen shed at the rear. This shed has since been replaced with a larger lean-to. Decorative carpentry and finish include chamfered edges, molded sheathing (especially in the great hall and parlor), and possibly original stair balusters.
The house offers tours.
Coffin House chronicles the evolution of domestic life in rural New England over three centuries. The 1678 structure, which contains the family's furnishings, began as a simple dwelling built in the post-medieval style. Tristam Coffin and his family lived, cooked and slept in two or possibly three rooms; their possessions were few. About 1700, the house was more than doubled in size to provide living space for a married son and his family. As the family grew, partitions were added and lean-tos built so that different generations could continue to live together under one roof. In 1785, two Coffin brothers legally divided the structure into two separate dwellings, each with its own kitchen and living spaces. With rooms from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, Coffin House depicts the impact of an expanding economy and new concepts, such as the notion of privacy, on architecture and modes of living.
The house offers tours and educational programs.
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.
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.