Ralph Adams Cram House, Chestnut Street, Boston, Massachusetts
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Turns out that you can learn a lot about a person by reading his memoir. Architect Ralph Adams Cram (1863-1942) wrote about his Boston house, but before I read his book I attributed another home to him last week. What I thought was 53 Chestnut Street turned out to be 52 Chestnut Street. (They're both smack-dab in rows of red brick historic townhouses.)
Whether Cram actually lived in number 53 or not, though, he definitely spent time in that living room.
It can't be a coincidence that he took down a wall in his Sudbury country home so that it would have two fireplaces, too:
Another thing I learned by reading Cram's book -- he had a serious case of the "if it were mines." He always wanted to live in an English Tudor manor house, so he worked with what he had in order to feel like he did.
Before he lived in his Beacon Hill townhouse or his Sudbury country house, he lived here:
This is the Richmond Court apartment building in Brookline that he designed in 1898, early in his career. It was his "attempt to camouflage an apartment house through the counterfeit presentment of a great Tudor mansion."
Not sure how it was in 1898, but today most of the units are about 1,200 square feet and have three bedrooms and one bathroom.
After Cram was commissioned to design buildings for West Point Military Academy in 1900...
{source}
he was able to realize his dream of living in Beacon Hill. His "great Tudor mansion" apartments became a "casual and tentative flat." (I haven't finished his memoir yet, but he's striking me as a snake that's always eager to shed his old skin.)
Since we can't see inside his house at number 52, let's take a look at his design inspiration across the street.
It's not Tudor or Gothic, so likely not a Cram idea, but the Palladian front door and window are a unique and gorgeous architectural element for a Beacon Hill townhouse.
The townhouse spans six levels, including the basement. The living room is on the first floor, above the rooms on the street level.
It shares the floor with this office and a guest bath that is tucked in the foyer hall.
The dining room is downstairs on the street level.
If it were Ralph's, it would probably look more Tudor, like this:
If it were mine a hundred years later, it would probably look more like this:
The family room and kitchen are also on the street level, along with a courtyard patio.
Two stories up from it is the grand bedroom suite with a dressing room:
There are two more bedrooms and one bathroom each on the third and fourth floors. The house has 4,620 square feet.
The rooftop deck is on the third floor:
Despite having this pretty refuge, Cram preferred another spot in the house. "Perhaps the most salient joy in acquiring the Chestnut Street house was being able to go down into my own cellar, feeling my feet actually on dirt that belonged to me, and for the purpose of getting a bottle of wine, or to see what was the matter with the furnace; or what the cat had brought in!"
But, as I said earlier, once Cram acquired another home, his former one lost some of its charm. After he bought his Sudbury country house Whitehall, he wrote "living in a rented flat or in a narrow slice of house in a city block I was not better than a wage-slave, a proletarian. Now at last I was a free man."
Another interesting thing I learned about Cram -- he and others credit his wife Bess for introducing Christmas caroling and candles in the windows to his Beacon Hill neighborhood. I believe it. After all, he's the Gothic church architect guy who built his very own chapel. (My previous post about Whitehall and the chapel is here.)
{his 1909 Christmas card, source}
Neither 52 or 53 Chestnut Street are currently on the market, and Cram's book My Life in Architecture isn't easily available either. I guess that's why I write this blog!
