The C. Henry Kimball House in Chelsea, Massachusetts, is sited on a ca. 10,000 square foot lot with about 116 feet of frontage on the northeast corner of Washington and Jefferson Avenues. The house is set back about 25 feet from both streets. Its location is such that while it is close to abutting properties, it maintains a sense of autonomy through grade changes and landscaping. The immediatearea in which the Kimball House is located contains other residential structures which, though similar in scale, are not of equal architectural quality. The overall effect of the neighborhood is that of an important upper middle class district of the second half of the nineteenth century. The Kimball House, built ca. 1880, is Queen Anne in style. Its architect is unknown al- though an 1898 Chelsea history states that Kimball himself planned it.
Two and one half stories in height, the house has the irregular plan, including round and rectangular bays, a round corner towner, and complex gabled roof line which is characteristic of the style. Also typical is the use of a variety of building materials. The foundation is of brick, fieldstone, and vermiculated brownstone while the elaborate wood detailing, particularly on the side entrance porches, and decorative panels of glazed brick. Above the first floor, and separated from it by a molded wooden string course, the walls are clapboarded except for some flush boarding in the gable fields; inset wood panels on window bays; and elaborate wood panelling and vertical flush boarding in the second story of the corner tower. The dentillated wood cornice which extends around the entire roof with a deep, bracketted overhang.
The main roof and dormers are covered with colored include round cut slates. The tower roof has round cut slates which diminish in size from bottom to top. An elaborate and typically Queen Anne threaded brick chimney with three stacks rises the height of the Jefferson Avenue, or west, facade of the Kimball House and penetrates the roof before continuing on its upward course. An over mantel window pierces this chimney on the first floor. Two smaller chimneys with only a suggestion of panelled brick ornamentation, rise from the west and east slopes, respectively, of the main roof. Fenestration on the Kimball House is varied and includes round windows; triple mullioned windows with stained glass transoms; windows curved with the wall plan of the corner tower; and quarter round windows in the gable fields. Window surrounds and caps are equally varied.
Ornamental brick caps on the brick first floor contrast with plain rectangular stone caps and wood surrounds with Queen Anne ornamentation window surrounds and caps on the second story are alsomuch ornamented with geometric and floral motifs. The three bay porch on the east side of the Kimball House was once entirely open with ma- chine turned and carved posts, a wooden balustrade with vase turned balusters between the posts, and an elaborate spindle screen with turned balusters above courses of machine cut geometric ornamentation. Above the screen is a narrow dentillated cornice. The screen, posts, and balustrade remain on the southern most bay of the porch.
The posts on the other two porch bays have been boxed in; the screen has been removed and boarding substituted (although the dentillated cornice above it and the geometriccourses below remain); and clapboarding has been substituted for the original balustrade. Louvered glass windows, and doors at the north and south ends, complete the enclosure of the once open middle and northern bays of the east porch. The roof of the east porch has two pitches. The longer or north-south one begins at the FHR-8-300(11-78) United States Department of the Interior Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service National Register of Historic Places Inventory - Nomination Form For HCRS use only received MAR 18 1982 date entered Continuation sheet Item number Page front of the building and extends for two bays before meeting the shorter, one-bay, east- west pitch at the right angle.
The gable end of each pitch is occupied by an elaborately molded and deep set pediment supported on machine carved brackets. The orientation of the pediment over the east face of the northern porch bay indicates that the porch was origin- ally entered at this point as well as from the front, or south. In addition to the side entrance porch on the east facade with its spindle screen, base turned posts, and balustrade, there is an open verandah of brick and concrete which wraps around much of the southern and western facades of the house. This has a simple, lattice- like balustrade with rectangular, wooden uprights and cross bar between low brick posts with concrete caps. The railing is also brick and concrete. It is very likely that the low brick posts and the balustrade are replacements for an original wooden balustrade with vase- turned balusters like those on the east porch.
The verandah ends toward the rear of the west facade of the house at an entrance which is sheltered by a one bay porch (now closed in) which, like its larger counterpart on the east, has (or had) a spindle screen at the top of all three sides. The wooden posts which supported the pediment end of this smaller porch have been replaced with clumsy brick piers to a point just below the decorative screen. The transition from one elevation to the next and the importance of one facade over another is somewhat obscured in the Kimball House except on the back, or north side. two reasons for this. One is found in the Queen Anne style of the house with its typically irregular plan and complex massing. The other is the unknown architects desire to create a design which would successfully turn the corner on which the structure is sited.
To this ETRTE end he used the device of the round corner tower around the base of which wraps the curved segment of the verandah. The south, or Washington Avenue, facade of the Kimball House is intended tobe the frontor principal elevation although in a design sense it has stiff com- petition from the east and west facades. A flight of steps leads: up from Washington Ave- nue to the house's one story entrance porch at the southeast corner. In strong contrast at the southwest corner of this facade stands the two story corner tower with its conical slated roof rising the height of a third story and topped by a tall copper finial. The central portion of the south facade is divided into two segments of unequal width, the broader eastern one stepped forward slightly from the narrower one and topped by a pedimen- ted gable.
A raised, brownstone basement underlies the central portion and ends in a string- course of the same material. Above this the brick first story is dominated by a shallow three sided bay window with wood panelling above and below each 1-over-1 double hung window. Piercing the cornice above the central window in the bay is a small projecting pediment. Ihree windows lighting the basement below this bay echo its tri-partite design with em- phasis again put on the center window. To the left, or west, of the bay is a decorative brick panel and stringcourse motifs which are repeated on the remainder of the first floor. In the narrower set back portion of the south front, adjacent to the tower, is a large almost square stained glass window. The brick flat arch aboveitis emphasized by additional decorative brickwork.
A moulded, projecting cornice with a narrow shed roof functions as a string course dividing the first story from the clapboarded second story on the whole build- ing. The narrower, western segment of the front wall is pierced by a round window set into a square surround ornamented with Queen Anne floral motifs. In the wider, eastern division of the second story wall is a double window with a decorative, wooden Queen Anne cap. Geo- metric motifs in the window surround are repeated on the porch below. Above the building's dentillated cornice and deep roof overhang a pedimented gable caps the wider segment of the FHR-8-300 (11-78) United States Department of the Interior Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service National Register of Historic Places Inventory - Nomination Form For HCRS use only received MAR 18 1982 date entered Continuation sheet Item number 7 Page 2 front facade.
A rectangular, double-hung window set into the gable field has obscured the original quarter round windows and Queen Anne decorative elements rendered in wood. Both the southwest corner tower and the porch on the east side of the Kimball House have raised brick foundations in contrast to the brownstone basement of the central portion of the south facade. The first story of the tower is brick as on the rest of the building, with insetornamental brickwork. Most of the wall space in both its first and second stories is occupied by large 1-over-1 windows curved with the wall plane. The architect has reserved the second story of the tower for the most elaborate decorative treatment seen on the entire building in accordance with the visual importance he has given the tower itself.
Its first story, as on the remainder of the building, is divided from the second by a molded string course with a narrow shed roof above it. Between this and a molded stringcourse which con- stitutes the second story window sill is vertical flush boarding. Another decorative wood string course sets off a transom at the top of each window. To either side of the windows are scrolled, columnar, and panelled decorative motifs. Near the top of the tower the den- tillated cornice scene on the remainder of the building is topped by a course of bosses set into panels above which is yet another molded string course. Above this brackets support the deep, molded overhang of the tower roof. The interior of the Kimball House, while modified to accomodate three separate living units, one on each floor, has not been severely altered.
This is due in part to the fact that for about fifty years it was used as a funeral home. Fine woodwork predominates throughout the interior and includes the turned newell posts of the main stairway, elaborate fireplace surrounds, and wainscotting and panelling in the halls and several first and second floor rooms. Probably the most impressive decorative feature of the interior of the Kimball House is the intricate inlaid-wood flooring which is different in each room and comprised of many types of woods. Plaster mouldings and decorative plaster work in fruit and floral patterns distinguish the ceilings. Other features of note include finely tooled hardware throughout the building and several built-in cabinets, chests of drawers, and office files. The single outbullding on the Kimball House lot is a carriage house which, in 1973, was con- verted for use as an aprartment.
Its original double doors have been walled in and the entire structure has been sheathed with 4" overlap aluminum siding.
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