Nomination for Abbot, Edwin, House

From the form

The catalogue entry the section above was filed under.

Form No. 10-300 (Rev.

10-74) UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OFTHE INTERIOR NATIONAL PARK SERVICE PH0628945 FOR NPS USE ONLY RECEIVED MAR 1 2 1979 NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES INVENTORY -- NOMINATION FORM DATE ENTERED MAY 10.1979 SEE INSTRUCTIONS IN HOW TO COMPLETE NATIONAL REGISTER FORMS TYPE ALL ENTRIES -- COMPLETE APPLICABLE SECTIONS 1 NAME HISTORIC AND/OR COMMON Mmin Aubbod Houze (Longy (Longy School of Music) Iongy School of Music LOCATION STREET & NUMBER 1 Follen Street CITY, TOWN Cambridge STATE - VICINITY OF CODE 3 Massachusetts CLASSIFICATION 025 _NOT FOR PUBLICATION CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT Eigth COUNTY Middlesex CODE 017 CATEGORY *DISTRICT BUILDING(S) _STRUCTURE _SITE _OBJECT OWNERSHIP PUBLIC X PRIVATE _BOTH PUBLIC ACQUISITION _IN PROCESS BEING CONSIDERED x STATUS _OCCUPIED _UNOCCUPIED -WORK IN PROGRESS ACCESSIBLE - YES: RESTRICTED - YES: UNRESTRICTED -NO PRESENT USE AGRICULTURE -_MUSEUM _COMMERCIAL _PARK XEDUCATIONAL -PRIVATE RESIDENCE LENTERTAINMENT _RELIGIOUS _GOVERNMENT -SCIENTIFIC INDUSTRIAL _TRANSPORTATION -MILITARY _OTHER: 4 OWNER OF PROPERTY NAME STREET & NUMBER Longy School of Music 1 Follen Street CITY.

TOWN STATE Massachusetts Cambridge _ VICINITY OF LOCATION OF LEGAL DESCRIPTION COURTHOUSE, REGISTRY OF DEEDS,ETC. STREET & NUMBER Middlesex County Registry of Deeds 128 Third Street CITY. TOWN STATE Massachusetts Cambridge 6 REPRESENTATION IN EXISTING SURVEYS TITLE Inventory of the Historic Assets of the Commonwealth DATE 1977 DEPOSITORY FOR SURVEY RECORDS Massachusetts Historical Commission CITY, TOWN _FEDERAL *STATE COUNTYLOCAL Boston STATE Massachusetts 7 DESCRIPTION CONDITION XEXCELLENT _GOOD FAIR DETERIORATED _RUINS _UNEXPOSED CHECK ONE Y-UNALTERED X ALTERED CHECK ONE XORIGINAL SITE -MOVED DATE. DESCRIBE THE PRESENT AND ORIGINAL (IF KNOWN) PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

Description of the property

Abbot House is built of polychromatic granite in the Richardsonian Romanesque style. The facade is rust yellow colored stone, with five dark brownstone string courses of varying width; three wide ones linking basement, firstaand second floor lintels and two narrow ones linking first and second floor sills. These banks serve as an impör- tant element of continulity. The windows are of various styles and sizes and appear to have almost a random placement in the walls, though in fact they genuinely demark the Victorian-shaped rooms within, and the staircases. The raised basement is distinguished from the rest of the structure by being of a darker stone and by its height. 230. Above and below the windows on the ground floor the monochromatic bank of dark granite is void of any detail.

The windows echo this modern, ribbon-like quality as they are plate glass and are asymmetrical, with the top frame smaller than the bottom. on the front facade is a subtly articulated Syrian arch extending over the alcove windows of the entrance hall and the front door, which clearly indicate the main entrance to the approaching visitor. The second-story windows are also delineated by two string courses running above and below the window casements. The one above, marking the ceiling of the rooms within, is unornamented except for a slight lip on the upper edge, whereas the one below is a thin rib of stone molding with a fine classical dentil course on the lower edge. The windows are typically small paneled Colonial revival, although occasionally joined with a plate-glass pane in the lower frame.

The third (half) story rises' thröugh the eaves, which carry a typical heavy Romanesque dentil course on the upper edge, and exists principally as dormer windows set around in the hip roof of red Spanish tile. The fenestration is triangular leaded glass casement windows. The arrangement of window seaded giass cemene vindo styles combined with the change inw'intensity of the string courses pulls the' eye up and down the facade and counteracts the natural heaviness of the material with whichtthe house is built. The general plan of the original Abbot House is that of an I, formed by joining two oblongs and capping them with a hip roof. The front of the I is the central part of the building. This oblong itself actually contains some degree of symmetry, for although not readily apparent from the street, it has three towers fused into its mass in a more or less symmetrical arrangement.

The foof is covered in red tiles. The gable finials are fleur-de-lis, in terracotta. Rising from the roof are six granite chimneys capped with red sandstone. Although the use of heavy tiles for the roof was becoming popular at the time Abbot House was built, the tiles also contributed to the overall fireproöfing of the building, which was a prime consideration for Mr. Abbot. The walls of the structure are more than a foot thick and rest on a finely laid foundation of cut fieldstone. The walls are self-supporting masonry and contain no iron or wooden braçing.. There is steel trussing in the roof, rather than pinned oaken timbering. The roof on the Abbot House' owes much to the Red House of William Morris and to the neoclassic crowns and finials öf Charles McKim's Boston Public Library.

The chimneys, however, are Richardsonian.They are low and subdued, and in construction are identical to those of Richardsonian, containing no elements of Queen Anne Revival or shingle style. Form No. 10-300a (Kev. 10-74) UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR NATIONAL PARK SERVICE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES INVENTORY -- NOMINATION FORM FOR NPS USE ONLY RECEIVED MAR 1 2 1979 MAY 10 1979 DATE ENTERED CONTINUATION SHEET 2 ITEM NUMBER 7 PAGE .2 The interior of Abbot House is finished almost entirely in wood paneling-~oak, wäänut, and butternut are used for the downstairs rooms. In all the rooms the same motifs are repeated with an organic rhythm. The room to the right of the front entrance contains an ôverall decor that has Palladian elements of the Colonial Revival as compared to the Italian and Queen Anne elements that are to be found in the other rooms.

The arrangement of space in the front part of the house is such that volumes move in and out of the rooms, despite the apparent scheme of cubicles opening into a cen- tral hall. Each room on the ground floor opens into its neighbor, and the original dining room can open into the stairway hall. A stairway with somewhat Byzantine turned ballusters curves upward from the left rear corner of the entrance hall. The wide molding used in finishing the interiors of the rooms on the third floor adds a mod- ern note to those rooms and highlights the abstracted window placements. An additdon to the Abbot House was made in 1968 when the Longy School constructed a to the building at the back of the stairway hall andis parallel with and connected to the ell of the original house.

The exteriorbbrick is the same rust yellow of the garden wall and the darker colored belt courses (of precast concrete) delineate the floor and ceiling levels in the same manner as those in thepprincipal structure. The original garden wall of yellow brick with red sandstone capping extends along the Follen and Garden Street Sides of the Longy property.

From the form

The catalogue entry the section above was filed under.

SIGNIFICANCE PERIOD PREHISTORIC .1400-1499 _1500-1599 _1600-1699 *1700-1799 _1800-1899 -1900- AREAS OF SIGNIFICANCE -- CHECK AND JUSTIFY BELOW ARCHEOLOGY-PREHISTORIC COMMUNITY PLANNING -LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE ARCHEOLOGY-HISTORIC _CONSERVATION -LAW AGRICULTURE _ECONOMICS - LITERATURE X ARCHITECTURE _EDUCATION _MILITARY ART -ENGINEERING XMUSIC _COMMERCE _EXPLORATION/SETTLEMENT _COMMUNICATIONS Br-PHILOSOPHY LINDUSTRY POLITICS/GOVERNMENT -INVENTION _RELIGION _SCIENCE _SCULPTURE -SOCIAL/HUMANITARIAN THEATER _TRANSPORTATION _OTHER (SPECIFY) 2A ie Sh ar he so SPECIFICDATES,.1889.: BUILDER/ARCHITECT Longfellow, alden and Harlow STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE

Statement of significance

The Edwin Abbot House in Cambridge retains integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling and association, 1s associated with persons significant in our past and is one of the finest residential interpretations of Richardsonian inspired design in Cambridge. 26 220 Abbot House wäs built in 1889 at One Follen Street, Cambridge, on the site of the old Cambridge Arsenal by Mr. E.H. Abbot, a lawyer and president of the Wisconsin Central Company who had moved to Cambridge from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He commissioned the Boston firm of Longfellow, Alden and Harlow to design for him the first stone house in the city of Cambridge; Abbot was undoubtedly attracted to the firm because of their having won the competition to design the Cambridge City Hall. All three architects had originally worked as part of the office of H.H..

Richardson and his influence is clearly seen in the exterior and interior design and finishing of it as "probably the only fireproof and the most expensive residence in the city." Abbot House is currently in appropriate adaptive use as the Longy School of Music. The building was: purchased by the school in 1937, from Edwin H. Abbot, Jr..-A-mo: major addition was made in 1968 in the form of a combination concert hall and library designed by the architectural firm of Huygens and Tappe, Inc. The concert hall/library has won numerous prizes and was featured in the January 1966 issue of Progressive Architecture..: The birchwoodplywood paneling used throughout the large room echoes the extensive use of paneling in Abbot House, and the fact that the outside rear wall of Abbot House serves as an interior wall in the foyer of the concert hall is another important visual bridge.

solfege training begun by Mr. Longy. Its distinguished faculty and student body have included such well-known musicians as Nadia Boulanger, Gregory Tucker, Wolfe Woltinsohn, E. Power Biggs, Daniel Pinkham, Anton Kurti, Robert Freeman, and Boris Goldovsky. Situated midway between Harvard and Radcliffe, the school provides an important musical resource for students living in Cambridge as well as for young children and adults. The Edward Pickman Concert Hall, is Widely used for concerts presented by Longy faculty and students and by accomplished outside musicians who rent the facility.

The rest of the file

Bibliography, boundary description, and the people who prepared and reviewed the nomination.

MAJOR BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES Cambridge Historical Commission. Survey of Architectural History in Cambridge Report Four: Old Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass. 1973. 10 GEOGRAPHICAL DATA ACREAGE OF NOMINATED PROPERTY _ LESS than one acre UTM REFERENCES A|19/ 32,522,0 ZONE EASTING 14,619317,4,01 NORTHING LIILL VERBAL BOUNDARY DESCRIPTION Please refer to the attached map which series. The boundary is deliniated in red.

ZONE EASTING NORTHING DLL Lillu is sheet #216 of Cambridge City Engineer's LIST ALL STATES AND COUNTIES FOR PROPERTIES OVERLAPPING STATE OR COUNTY BOUNDARIES STATE CODE COUNTY CODE STATE CODE COUNTY CODE 11 FORM PREPARED BY NAME/ TITLE ORGANIZATION Massachusetts Historical Commission STREET & NUMBER 294 Washington Street CITY OR TOWN Boston Lind Londa Sf Musi Candace Jenkins, National Register Coordinator DATE February 1979 TELEPHONE (617) 727-8470 STATE Massachusetts 12 STATE HISTORIC PRESERVATION OFFICER CERTIFICATION THE EVALUATED SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS PROPERTY WITHIN THE STATE IS: NATIONAL - STATE _ LOCAL As the designated State Historic Preservation Officer for the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (Public Law 89-665), I hereby nominate this property for inclusion in the National Register and certify that it has been evaluated according to the criteria and procedures set forth by the National Park Service.

STATE HISTORIC PRESERVATION OFFICER SIGNATURE TatuahWestowski 3/1/24 DATE TITLE Executive Director, Mass. Historical Comm. FOR NPS USE ONLY I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT THIS PROPERTY IS INCLUDED IN THE NATIONAL REGISTER OFFICE AREMEOLO PANO HISPOBIC-PRESERVAHIGN ATTEST: KEEPER OF REGISTER DATE 510-19 KINNPER OE THE HETTORAL RECLqUAY DATE 5/9/29 GPO 892.453 Edwin Abbot House Cambridge, MA City Engineer s Map Scale 1"=40 Nº60 27,8K6 (12u RECEIVED MAR 1 2 1979 NATIONAL REGISTER (74.61) (73.85) Nº59 22,936 (117.80) 27 EDWIN ABBOT AO. (LONGY SCHOOL). 10.85 (111.0)= 216 (5770) N CITY OF CAMBRIDGE SCALE I= 40° (GAT?) 25 23 FOLLEN ST. (131.33) (97.59) 9 CONCORO AVE.

798.6 Nº50 9,106 (6217) 7 (134,36 (146.74) 28,027 (72.13) Nº 70 10,550 (135.0)= Nº69 14,141 (109.43 DRIVE (119.33) + 5 (78.55) (142.57) (54.02) 253.65 (98.77) N° 19,2 (5,5) 2.5 WIDE WALK (109.0) F FOL 96.02 14150 Nº24 12196 (81.46) Nº49 3,740 MAY | O 1979 Property Abbat, Edenin, Htanse CLarky School af Mlsis) mass. Midlleoking Number K 3.12.79.500 TECHNICAT Eacting Photos CONTROL Maps 3.13.79 HISTORIAN ARCHITECTURAL HISTORIAN ARCHEOLOGIST OTHER HAER Inventory - Review TK BULDING 4S SIGNIHLANT AS ONK WHCH SHOWS THE RICHARDSONWN REVIEW UNIT CHIEF INFLUENCK I IN CAMBRIDUE. IT WAS DASIGNED BY THK FIRM OF (ONAFEHOW, ARLON AND LURDIN; ALL THREE VAD WORKKR PREVIDUSLY FOR RICHARDSON. IT IS ALSO GIGNIMLANT FOR ITS ASSDELATION WITH THK TRUETESRRRE LONGLEY SCHBDL DF AULSILWIRLt HAS DRCUPIEEN TAR HOWTK SENLE 1937 AND WAS ADPFED TO It FOR THEAR PURPOSES.

ua 5/9/19 BRANCH 'CHIEF KEEPER National Register Write-up Federal Register Entry 6-5-19 Send-back Re-submit Entered MAY /01979 United States Department of the Interior - Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service CAMBRIDGE HISTORICAL COMMISSION PHOTÔGRAPA 1979 By_ C. SULNAN No.1044/33 _Date_4.78 EDun A330T HoUsE (Longy School of Musi) ONE FOLLEN ST. MAR 1 2 1979 CAMBRIDLE, MASS Abbut, Eduin, House (Longy School uf Myusie) NF 3/27/79 Longy - School of Music Roman Totenberg, director Robert Lee Tipps, administrator April 13, 1979 Dr. William J. Murtagh Keeper of the National Register Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service Department of the Interior Pension Building 440 G Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20243 Dear Dr.

Murtagh: Thank you for letting us know that your committee will soon be considering whether the Edwin Abbot House (Longy School of Music) should be listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The trustees and administration of the Longy School value the architectural significance of our building and are eager for the significant details of the building to be preserved. Abbot House is an important example of Richardson-Romanesque architecture and holds a unique position as the first stone house to be constructed in'Cambridge. It was described by newspapers of the time (1881) as "probably the only fireproof and the most expensive residence in the city." The building is located adjacent to Arsenal Square, on the edge of the Old Cambridge Historic District. Abbot House has seen effective adaptive use as a music school since 1937 and has under- gone very few changes.

Important exterior and interior features are very much intact, though currently in need of repair. We appreciate having been given the opportunity to restate our case and will hope to hear a positive outcome in the near future. Sincerely, Uiida 4. Aich Linda L. Glick, Trustee P.S. To avoid confusion, I should tell you that the name of the President of the Board of Trustees, Betty vN. Burroughs, appears on any documents requiring a sig- nature.

Zof your One Follen Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 two blocks north of Harvard Square at Garden Street and Concord Avenue (617) 876-0956 THE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES DATE RECD APR 18 1979 (ATTACHED) DITE NITIALS 1 ENTRIES IN THE NATIONAL REGISTER STATE MASSACHUSETTS Date Entered MAY 1 O 1979 Name Odd Fellow's Hall Conkey-Stevens House Sanderson, Julia, Theater (Paramount Theater) Winchester Square Historic District STurner, Stephen, House tmw Abbot, Edwin, House (Longy School of Music) Chaplin-Clarke House Location Shelburne Falls Franklin County Amherst Hampshire County Springfield Hampden County Springfield Hampden County Norfolk Norfolk County Cambridge Middlesex County Rowley Essex County Also Notified Honorable Paul G. Isongas Honorable Edward M. Kennedy Honorable Silvio O. Conte Honorable Edward P. Boland Honorable Margaret M. Heckler Honorable Thomas P.

0'Neill Honorable Nicholas Mayroules NR Byers/bjr 5/14/79 State Historic Preservation Officer Mrs. Patricía L. Weslowski Executive Director Massachusetts Historical Comnission 294 Washington Street Boston, Massachusetts 02108 For further information, please call the National Register at (202)343-6401.