Major Bibliographical References (Cite the books, articles, and other sources used in preparing this form on one or more continuation sheets.) Previous documentation on file (NPS): Primary location of additional data: - preliminary determination of individual listing (36 _ State Historic Preservation Office CFR 67) has been requested _Other State agency _previously listed in the National Register Federal agency _ previously determined eligible by the National X Local government Register _ University _ designated a National Historic Landmark - Other _ recorded by Historic American Buildings Survey # Name of repository: Cambridge Historical Commission _ recorded by Historic American Engineering Record # Beck-Warren House Name of Property 10. Geographical Data Acreage of Property less than one UTM References (Place additional UTM references on a continuation sheet) 1.
19 Zone 325860 Easting 4693080 Northing 2. Zone Easting Northing Middlesex, MA County and State 3. 4. Zone Zone Easting Easting - See continuation sheet Northing Northing Verbal Boundary Description (Describe the boundaries of the property on a continuation sheet.) Boundary Justification (Explain why the boundaries were selected on a continuation sheet.) 11. Form Prepared By name/title_Sarah Zimmerman, Preservation Planner, with Betsy Friedberg, National Regester Director, MHC organization_Massachusetts Historical Commission date February 1996 street & number_220 Morrissey Boulevard city or town_Boston state MA _telephone (617) 727-8470 _zip code_02125 Additional Documentation Submit the following items with the completed form: Continuation Sheets Maps A USGS map (7.5 or 15 minute series) indicating the property's location.
A sketch map for historic districts and properties having large acreage or numerous resources. Photographs Representative black and white photographs of the property. Additional items (Check with the SHPO or FPO for any additional items) Property Owner (Complete this item at the request of the SHPO or FPO.) name_President and Fellows of Harvard College, c/o Kathy A. Spiegelman, Director of Planning street & number1350 Massachusetts Avenue telephone (617) 495-2234 city or town_Cambridge state MA zip code_02138 Paperwork Reduction Act Statement: This information isbeing collected for applications to the National Register of Historic Places to nominate properties for listing or determine eligibility for listing, to list properties, and to amend existing listings.
Response to this request is required to obtain a benefit in accordance with the National Historic Preservation Act, as amended (16 U.S.C. 470 et seg.). Estimated BurdenStatement:Public reporting burden for this form is estimatedto average 18.1 hours per response including the time for reviewing instructions, gathering and maintaining data, and completing and reviewing the form. Direct comments regarding this burden estimate or any aspect of this form to the Chief, Administrative Services Division, National Park Service, P.0. Box 37127, Washington, DC 20013-7127; and the Office of Management and Budget, Paperwork Reductions Project (1024-0018), Washington, DC 20503. NPS Form 10-000-a (8-86) OMB Approvel No.
1024-0018 United States Department of the Interlor National Park Service Natlonal Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number _ Page Beck-Warren House Cambridge (Middlesex County) Massachusetts 7. DESCRIPTION The Beck-Warren House, built in 1833 for Harvard Latin professor Charles Beck and owned from 1891 to 1899 by Sanskrit scholar Henry Clarke Warren, is a two-and-a-half story Greek Revival single-family dwelling with a five-bay, center entrance plan, double end wall chimneys and flanking one-and-a-half story wings set flush with the main block walls. The walls are sheathed in narrow clapboards, the foundation is of dressed granite, and the pedimented gable roof, which contains a half-round window on the facade elevation, is slate shingled. A three-bay wide Greek Doric porch shields the entrance.
The main house is framed with wide Doric pilasters, while the flanking wings have broad, registered quoins at the corners. A short, one-bay wide service ell occupies the center bay of the rear wall. A two-story, hip-roofed porch of buff brick with Grueby tile screening and capitals, added in 1897, rises at the southeast rear corner. When Henry Warren purchased the house in 1891, portions of the interior were extensively remodelled for his use; although much of the exterior remained unchanged, some elements were altered in the then-popular Colonial Revival style. Sashes, most of which are original, are narrow-muntin, six-over-six double-hung set in casings that are topped with simple projecting cornices, but some second-story sashes may have been replaced in kind (ca. 1891) in woods to match new interior treatments.
A box bay on the second story of the east wing and an east-facing shed-roofed dormer with a series of small, round-arched awning windows were added in the remodelling and, as the rendering of the house makes clear, the original main entrance was modified. The present entrance treatment consists of a simple Greek Revival casing from which the wood-muntined transom and sidelights (shown in the rendering) and double-leaved doors were removed. Elaborate leaded fan- and sidelights were installed, along with two raised-panel doors in the Colonial Revival style. A remarkably ornamental 19th-century exterior door survives in the basement of the house; it features panelling decorated with applied jig-sawn scrolls and anthemia.
While it appears to be too wide to have been one of the original pair of front entrance doors, the door is probably original to the house and may have been used in another location. Another likely Colonial Revival-era alteration was the substitution of wide, registered quoins on the wings for the narrow cornerboards indicated in the rendering; those quoins are disproportionate to the otherwise lightly-scaled character of the wings. (continued) NPSForm 10-900-1 (8-86) OMB Approvel No.
1024-0018 United States Department of the Interlor National Park Service National Register of Historlc Places Continuation Sheet Section number - Beck-Warren House Cambridge (Middlesex County) Massachusetts Page Notable features of the original exterior include the plan of the house and its Doric entry, while the brick porch at the rear is the most exceptional exterior feature of the later construction phase. The house's symmetrical rectangular plan, with a two-and-a-half story main block and subsidiary one-and-a-half story wings that occupy the full depth of the house, suggests a design usually intended for a country setting. It is exceptional within the local context (there being no other known examples of that plan in the city) and recalls the original siting of the house within park-like grounds.
Of equal note is the classically-correct execution of the Doric portico, constructed at a time when vernacular interpretations of classical architecture were the norm in the quiet, semi-agrarian town that Cambridge was in the 1830s. The 1897 rear porch stands two stories tall with an enclosed ground floor surmounted by a loggia with brick piers and glazed tile balustrades. The loggia appears to have been designed to allow for some screened or glazed enclosure: the space can be heated and the pier capitals are cut back in a way that suggests that sash could be set between them. The tiles, in a perforated oriental pattern, and lotus-leaf capitals have a blue-green glaze. Designed by H.
Langford Warren, founder of the Harvard School of Architecture in 1893 and a charter member of Boston's Society of Arts and Crafts, the porch was published in The Brickbuilder (November, 1897 and August, 1898) as an example of the Grueby Faience Company's work. (Langford Warren was unrelated to Henry Warren.) Interior Features The interior of the Beck-Warren House is exceptionally sophisticated, both because of the highly decorative nature of original and later features and of the uniquely-adapted finishes installed ca. 1891 for Henry Warren. In plan, the house contains a central hallway running the depth of the building. The main stair rises three stories on the west side. There is no back stair at present, but 20th-century alterations for the offices that now occupy the building undoubtedly account for its removal.
On the ground floor of the main block on the east side are a dining room with kitchen behind and, on the west side, a double parlor running the depth of the house. There is a small anteroom at the rear of the center hallway in the projecting ell. The wings each contain a pair of rooms. It is likely that the second floor plan originally mimicked the first, with a full-depth double room on the west side above the parlor and a pair of rooms on the east side. As altered by Warren, that plan was apparently extended so that the second story consisted of two large rooms running the depth of the house, with a bathroom at the rear of the center hall. On the east side, the room was further enlarged by removing the ceiling, adding a (continued) NPSForm 10-000-4 OMB Approvel No.
1024-0018 United States Department of the Interlor National Park Service National Register of Historlc Places Continuation Sheet Section number. 3 Page - Beck-Warren House Cambridge (Middlesex County) Massachusetts dormer, and constructing a gallery at the third-floor level. The half-stories above the wings contain several ancillary spaces. The third floor consists of a series of closets (including one containing the cistern for the original plumbing) and small servants' rooms that ring the top of the stairs. A door off the stairhall gives access to the east-side gallery. Original surviving fabric is most evident on the west side of the first floor, where the double parlor and paired chambers (probably built as an office and library for Professor Beck) survive virtually intact, the only alteration being acoustical tile that has been applied to the ceiling of the parlor.
The parlor contains a particularly elegant Corinthian-columned archway at the room's center. All of the windows in this section, as well as those in the house's original dining room on the east side of the ground floor and one window in the small anteroom at the rear of the hall, are set in splayed reveals with interior shutters. Window and door casings throughout the house feature cornerblocks with carved rosettes, while virtually all of the original six-panel interior doors and their hardware survive. Narrow modillion cornices crown all of the first floor walls, though in the entrance hall and dining room, additional mouldings appear to have been added ca. 1891 to make the cornices more robust. In addition, the main stair was reworked ca. 1891 on all three floors in high-style Georgian Revival fashion with balusters in three different spiral-turned patterns on each tread.
Narrow dadoes and original baseboards survive in several rooms, and, in the kitchen, tongue and groove panelling to the dado and an exposed brick chimney face recall that room's original function. One wall of the first-floor rear anteroom has marble wainscot, possibly indicating early use as a bathroom or pantry. Early mantels and stove hardware include a blond European marble mantel in the northwest office, a lancet-arched gray marble mantel in the southwest office and a pair of black marble mantels in the parlor. The mantelpieces and chimney breasts in the dining room and southeast office are Colonial Revival replacements. The second and third floors display fully the Colonial Revival alterations of the 1890s, though remnants of original fabric remain.
To a remarkable extent, the upper floors reflect the special needs of Henry Clarke Warren, disabled in early childhood with a severe spinal injury that left him virtually immobile for the rest of his life. The second story was remodelled as a living suite of two large rooms, enabling Warren to reside principally on that floor. These included a bed chamber on the west side and the double-height east chamber (sometimes described as Warren's dining room but more likely a library), plus bath and, after 1897, sunporch. (continued) NPS Form 10-900- OMB Approvel No. 1024-0018 United States Department of the Interior NationalPark Service National Register of Historlc Places Continuation Sheet Section number Page Beck-Warren House Cambridge (Middlesex County) Massachusetts The west chamber is now divided into two rooms, but in Warren's remodelling was treated as a single large room.
The north and south walls are identically panelled in oak, with built-in bookcases and shallow closets. Both chimneys have elaborate Georgian Revival mantels supported on scrolled consoles and are set within panelled overmantels and surrounds. Warren also added a large skylight to the room that spans the partition which now divides it. An original feature of the chamber are three cased beams detailed with Greek key mouldings on the lower face. These span the width of the west room and intersect with the panelled overmantels, suggesting that the space may have been open in Professor Beck's tenure. What is now the southwest room contains one of the unique features of the house: a space created by closing off the facade end of the stairhall and adding to it a raised platform that Warren used for a bed.
Heated with hot air registers, wired with a call bell for assistance, and indirectly lit by glazing fitted into the hall panelling and by the window of the second-story center bay (which was shielded from drafts with an inner window of patterned glass), the platform can be completely shut off from the chamber by pulling down an overhead tambour door. On the east side, from what must have been two separate chambers, Warren created a large, oak-panelled room open to the roof and circled on the upper level by an arcaded gallery with a low balustrade of strapwork. Lit by the east-facing dormer and, before the installation of a panelled partition at the north end (probably added when Harvard acquired the house), by pairs of windows on the north and south walls, the room also contains a large skylight, now covered over.
Also ornamenting the room are a pair of fireplaces set with glazed ceramic tile in Oriental motifs and sets of bookcases built in to the endwalls. A run of wide stairs on the east side of the room, now floored over, once communicated through a double door with the sunporch to the rear and with a small room in the upper level of the east wing, which was fitted with built-in aquariums. (It is likely that wide spaces such as the double door would have accommodated Warren's need to be carried up and down stairs, just as the size of the full-depth east and west rooms would have facilitated his movement within them.) Also of note is the intact survival of Warren's ca. 1891 bath, tiled on the walls and ceiling with glazed white ceramic and on the floor with random brown tesserae.
The marble basin, overhead-tank toilet and bathtub are also original: the zinc tub fills one side of the room and contains a seat at one end and an overhead shower. The porcelain toilet, of circular shape, is ornamented with a relief pattern depicting a basket of rushes and was originally embellished with gold leaf. Adjacent to the toilet is a call bell, one of several extant on the second floor. (continued) NPS Form 10-000- OMB Approvel No. 1024-0018 United States Department of the Interlor National Park Service National Register of Historlc Places Continuation Sheet Section number. Page Beck-Warren House Cambridge (Middlesex County) Massachusetts The second floor stairhall is panelled to plate-rail level with raised-field panelling and papered with chrysanthemum-pattern anaglypta above.
The stair continues to the third level, terminating in a balustrade and spindle screen that circle the opening. The stairhall, like the east and west chambers, contains a large skylight (now closed in) that would have provided natural lighting in the hallway. Alterations to the major decorative and functional aspects of the house subsequent to Warren's ownership have been minimal. Only the service areas on the ground floor, in the attics, and in the upper levels of the wings have been updated; those spaces have been converted to academic offices. Setting and Property History The house presently stands within a densely developed complex of academic buildings just east of Harvard's main campus, Harvard Yard (NHL, 12/30/70; NRD, 12/14/87), in the block formed by Harvard, Quincy, Broadway and Prescott streets.
The house has been owned since 1899 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College, which has used the property as a philological library and, since the early 20th-century, as the home of the English department. Beck-Warren House is contiguous to six academic buildings, five of which are individually listed on the National Register (Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, 3/2/90; Dana-Palmer House [now a guesthouse for visiting dignitaries], 5/19/86; Fogg Art Museum, 5/19/86; Harvard Union, 1/26/87). The sixth, the Faculty Club, was constructed in 1930 and altered in the 1960s. The site on which the Beck-Warren House stands devolved out of the Francis Dana estate. Dana, prominent in Revolutionary War politics and Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, inherited the land in 1772 and maintained a mansion house on the estate until his death in 1811.
During the 17th century, the 32-acre homestead of Edmund Goffe incorporated the Beck-Warren House parcel, but by the 18th-century, it was pasturage for the Dana estate. The Dana estate was subdivided by Francis Dana's heirs after 1819. In 1831, Charles Beck, the builder of the house, bought four lots totalling 83,236 square feet from William Pulteney Dana, two north of Harvard Street and two south of it. On the northern lots, a 58,526 square foot parcel, Beck built his house. The 24,710-square-foot section south of Harvard Street was known as Beck Park for its extensive orchards and gardens. The Beck-Warren House was moved 130' north of its original location in 1900 (but still within the boundaries of its original lot) to enable the construction of the Harvard Union (McKim, Mead & White, 1901).
The house is now tightly bounded by later buildings, albeit (continued) NP8 Form 10-000-4 OMB Approvel No. 1024-0018 United States Department of the Interlor NationalPark Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 7,8 1 Page Beck-Warren House Cambridge (Middlesex County) Massachusetts within a well-kept setting of landscaped walkways and grounds. A pencil-and-watercolor rendering of the house, probably executed around the mid-19th century, gives a sense of its original setting and appearance. Archaeological Description No prehistoric sites are currently recorded on the house property or in the general area(within one mile). Locational characteristics of the property, particularly its excessive distance from wetlands(over 1000 feet) are not favorable for most prehistoric site locations.
Given the above information, the small size of theparcel(now less than one acre) and impacts from construction of the house foundation and cellar, the potential for recovering significant prehistoric archaeological resources is low. The potential for recovering historic archaeological resources is also low. The Beck-Warren House was moved 130 feet north of it's original location in 1900. While the house still lies within the limits of the original parcel, its earlier park like sourroundings have been replaced by tightly sourrounded later structures. (end) 8. STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE The Beck-Warren House is significant under criterion B of the National Register for its associations with two prominent 19th-century academic figures, Charles Beck, University Professor of Latin, and Henry Clarke Warren, a pioneering Sanskrit scholar.
It is significant under criterion C as an embodiment of the distinctive characteristics of the Greek Revival style with significant alterations in the Colonial Revival style. It is also significant for the manner in which it was adapted for use by a disabled owner, Henry Warren and for its long history of use within the Harvard academic campus. The Beck-Warren House possesses integrity of design, materials, workmanship, feeling and association. Despite having been moved in 1900, the house remains on its original lot. Criterion B Charles Beck (1798-1866) Charles Beck, born in Heidelberg and holder of a doctor of philosophy degree from Tübingen, emigrated from Germany in 1824 with Charles Follen, the prominent Unitarian minister, both of whom became refugees from their native country for their liberal political beliefs. Beck (continued) NPS Form 10-900-4 (8-08) OMB Approvel No.
1024-0018 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historlc Places Continuation Sheet Section number Page Beck-Warren House Cambridge (Middlesex County) Massachusetts lived first in Northampton, where he taught gymnastics at the Round Hill School established by historian George Bancroft, became a U.S. citizen, and married Louisa Augusta Henshaw (1799-1830), youngest daughter of Judge Samuel and Madam Martha Hunt Henshaw, prominent landholders in Northampton. In 1831, Beck married his wife's older sister, Theresa Henshaw Phillips (1791-1863), the widow of a Boston wholesale hardware merchant, Edward Phillips (1782-1826), and in 1832 was called to be University Professor of Latin at Harvard. In 1833, the house at 12 Quincy Street was constructed for Beck and his second wife, their daughter, Anna Louisa Beck Möring (1833-1891), and Mrs.
Beck's two children, Edward Bromfield Phillips (1825-1848) and Theresa Henshaw Phillips (1827-1856; baptized Miriam Mason Phillips, Miss Phillips changed her name ca. 1847). Beck held his academic post for 19 years, resigning in 1850 to pursue private business interests. A vice-president of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Beck later received an honorary doctor of laws degree (1865) from Harvard. From 1850 to his death, Beck was extremely active in local political and business life, serving as a president of the Cambridge Savings Bank and as a representative to the General Court in 1862 and 1864. As a devoted supporter of both the abolition and Unionist causes, Beck founded and drilled with a private volunteer militia, the Twelfth Unattached Company.
An ardent horseman, Beck died March 19, 1866, following a stroke that occurred while he was riding with his daughter and the Harvard riding master. Stores in Cambridge were closed during the time of his funeral, at which Harvard President Thomas Hill and Cambridge Mayor J. Warren Merrill were pallbearers. Beck was part of a first wave of German scholars at Harvard who helped to introduce a pedagogy that became a critical component of curriculum reforms achieved under President Charles W. Eliot (1869-1909), who instituted modern liberal arts and science educational standards unknown in early 19th-century Harvard.
Beck's entry in the Dictionary of American Biography states: though he lacked something of the constructive imagination which the truly great scholar must possess [, hje was one of those who introduced into the United States the scholarship of Germany, which made the teaching of the classics more alive... and he must be included among those whose influence led the ambitious young American scholars of the two following generations to study in German universities. (continued) NPS Form 10-000-e (8-86) United States Department of the Interlor National Park Service Natlonal Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet OMB Approvel No. 1024-0018 Section number Page Beck-Warren House Cambridge (Middlesex County) Massachusetts Beck was also memorialized in a noteworthy building constructed by his daughter, Anna Möring, in 1876. Beck Hall (N. J.
Bradlee, architect; demolished 1940), located on a triangular portion of the family's property at the intersection of Harvard and Quincy streets and Massachusetts Avenue, was a four-story brick Victorian Gothic building constructed as Harvard Square's first luxury private dormitory. The cynosure of elegance, Beck Hall housed the wealthiest of Harvard's students and spawned the construction of a bevy of similarly luxurious private dormitories, popular until the university's undergraduate housing policy changed to forbid off-campus living (see Harvard Square NR District, 7/27/88). Henry Clarke Warren (1854-1899) Henry Clarke Warren, second son of wealthy Boston paper manufacturer Samuel Dennis Warren, purchased the Beck house in 1891, establishing his own household there at the age of 37, presumably using funds made available to him after the 1888 death of his father.
Prior to that time, Warren, who had early on established a reclusive, scholarly lifestyle for himself, lived mostly at his family homes at 67 Mount Vernon Street, Boston and Cedar Hill, Waltham. An 1879 graduate of Harvard College and one-time resident of Beck Hall, Warren continued his studies at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and at Oxford University, England, furthering an early interest in classical languages and Sanskrit to embark on the study of Pali, an ancient vernacular Indic language used in Buddhist scripture. Translator of a number of the sacred texts of southern Indian Buddhism, Warren became the "first American scholar to attain distinction" in this field, according to the Dictionary of American Biography. With his great friend, Harvard Sanskrit professor Charles R.
Lanman (1850-1941), Warren founded and personally endowed the Harvard Oriental Series, a 38-volume publication of masterworks in eastern philosophy. Warren's substantial means allowed him to create a living space uniquely adapted to his needs. Cared for for much of his life by an anonymous black manservant, and assisted in his scholarship by a staff who worked with him (presumably in the first floor rooms at 12 Quincy Street), Henry Warren rarely left his house, seldom received visitors, and entered into few relationships beyond those with fellow Sanskrit scholars.
It is therefore likely that his modifications to the Beck house (creating skylights, enlarging rooms, adding the heated sunporch, building in aquariums that would enliven his living quarters, and adapting spaces, such as his roomette, for maximum comfort) reflect to a marked degree the personal and private needs of this reclusive individual. (continued) NPS Form10-000-4 (6-88) United States Department of the Interlor NationalPark Service Natlonal Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet OMB Approvel No. 1024-0018 Section number 4 Page Beck-Warren House Cambridge (Middlesex County) Massachusetts The close proximity of the house to Harvard's libraries, students, and teaching staffs, and to Charles Lanman (who lived four blocks away), undoubtedly appealed to Warren.
The house's massive (and still intact) heating system may also have been attractive: Warren is said to have heated his rooms to 90° as a respite from his chronic pain. On his death in 1899, Warren left the bulk of his estate, including his house, to Harvard, which had provided him a sanctuary unlike any he had been able to achieve within his family. The benefits of this secure situation were evident in his production of his magnum opus translations, Buddhism in Translation and the Visuddhimagga ("Way of Purity"), while resident in the house.
Criterion C The Beck-Warren House is representative of a distinctive and early local manifestation of the Greek Revival style that seems to have been developed by Harvard professors who built houses for themselves in the period between 1822 and 1836: these houses placed the five-bay wide, center-entrance, end-wall chimney plan typical of New England Georgian and Federal architecture beneath a broad, front-facing gable roof treated as a pediment. The resulting building combined the plan and construction of the vernacular Georgian with the temple form of the incipient Greek Revival. Approximately a half-dozen of these houses were built in the neighborhood of the Beck-Warren House with a concentration on "Professor's Row" (Kirkland Street) adjoining Quincy Street.
In Old Cambridge, the earliest standard temple-front Greek Revival house (i.e., with a pediment projecting out over a two-story columned portico) was built in 1838. The Beck-Warren House follows the five-bay form but is exceptional for its subsidiary wings, which give it a Palladian symmetry. There is some reason to suggest the involvement of Asher Benjamin in the design of the Beck-Warren House. In 1832, Benjamin designed a house for Joseph T. Buckingham at 28 Quincy Street, two houses north of Beck's house at 12 Quincy (Quinan, 1982). The Buckingham House, demolished in 1925 for construction of the Fogg Art Museum, had the broad-gable, five-bay, center-entrance form of Beck's house, with a Doric portico at the center bay.
The Doric portico at the Beck-Warren House replicates the Greek Doric order illustrated in Plate D of The American Builder's Companion (1827), while the first-floor window treatments are as illustrated in Plate 43 of The Practice of Architecture (1833). Window and door casing mouldings are illustrated in Plate 48, d. of The Practice of Architecture. It is clear that the builder of the Beck-Warren House was familiar with Benjamin's most recent pattern books and it seems possible that Benjamin himself may have been involved, given his (continued) NPS Form 10-000- (8-66) United States Department of the Interlor NationalPark Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet OMB Approvel No.
1024-0018 5 Sectlon number Page Beck-Warren House Cambridge (Middlesex County) Massachusetts design for a neighboring house of contemporary date and the close temporal relationship between the features found in the 1833 Beck-Warren House and their illustration in a pattern book of the same date. With regard to attributing the alterations made by Warren, the only direct information available is a building permit for construction of the sunporch issued in 1897 (#0737), histing H. Langford Warren as architect. Interior alterations would not have required a building permit at that time, so it is impossible to know the architect associated with the changes undoubtedly made at the time Warren purchased the house in 1891.
Langford Warren's later involvement suggests he may have been responsible for the earlier work, but this cannot be confirmed A curious feature of the house frequently mentioned in accounts of its architecture is the presence of a "secret room" between the first and second floors. The room, a few feet high, is accessed through a trapdoor in the second-story hall floor. It appears to occupy space in the headroom above the first floor basement stairwell and communicates with the basement via an enclosed shaft with a metal spike ladder that runs alongside the basement staircase. Workmen uncovered the room in the 1940s. It was said to have been carpeted, hung with drapes, and contained a metal bed and small bureau. Hardware on the trapdoor seems contemporary with the 1890s finishes of the second and third floors but the date and function of the room are unexplained.
Apocryphal accounts link Professor Beck's fervent abolitionist beliefs to the room, asserting it to be an underground railway stop. Without further research into Beck's associations with the abolition movement or a closer examination of the materials and construction of the room, it is impossible to determine its antecedents. Warren bequeathed the house to Harvard on his death in early 1899. Even before its move in 1900, the house was in academic use. In January, 1900, the Nation ran an article describing the bequest of the house and its conversion as a philological library.
The Nation reported: Upon the ground floor have been placed the Child Memorial Library [containing three thousand volumes on English literature], and the libraries of the French, German and Romance languages departments; the Sanscrit library also finds a place in the building, and the total number of volumes now in place is about six thousand. Other rooms in the house are used for some of the advanced courses in literature, and the large upstairs room is available for the meetings of the modern languages division of the university. Mr. Warren's own study is used by Professor C.R. Lanman, and contains the Indo-Iranian library, to which Mr. Warren had so largely contributed. (continued) NPS Form 10-900-4 (8-86) OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet 6 Section number. Page.
Beck-Warren House Cambridge (Middlesex County) Massachusetts Library use seems to have lasted until World War I, after which time, the house came into the exclusive use of the English department, which remains in the house to the present. Its primary function is for administrative and faculty offices though some seminars are also held there. Current plans call for the English department to move to new quarters in the near future and for the building to be renovated for other humanities departments' offices. Conversion of the house to office use has allowed for the preservation of virtually all aspects of the interior and exterior of the house. Changes to the house have been contained in service areas of the house on the ground floor and attic levels, which have seen limited and largely cosmetic alterations to accommodate additional office space.
Use by the English department is significant as an active agent in the preservation of the exceptional interior finishes from both Beck and Warren's occupancies. (end) NPSForm 10-900- OMB Approvel No. 1024-0018 United States Department of the Interlor National Park Service National Register of Historlc Places Continuation Sheet Section number - Page . Beck-Warren House Cambridge (Middlesex County) Massachusetts - 9. MAJOR BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES Maps and Atlases Bromley, George W.
and Walter S., Atlas of the City of Cambridge, Philadelphia, 1894, 1903, 1916, 1930 Franklin View Company, City of Cambridge, Boston, 1877 Hopkins, G.M., Atlas of the City of Cambridge, Philadelphia, 1873, 1886 Sanborn-Perris Company, Insurance Maps of Cambridge, Massachusetts, New York, 1900 Walling, H.F., Map of the City of Cambridge, Boston, 1854 Government Documents Cambridge Building Department, Building permits, 1886-present Cambridge Historical Commission, Survey files (Warren House, Harvard University) People files (Charles Beck, Henry Clarke Warren) -, Architect files (Asher Benjamin, H.
Langford Warren) Cambridge, Vital Records (Anna Louisa Beck, Charles Beck, Theresa Beck, Edward Bromfield Phillips) Middlesex County, Registry of Deeds, Land records (12 Quincy Street) Middlesex County, Registry of Probate, Docket Numbers 27186 (Charles Beck), 27188 (Theresa Henshaw Beck), 28405 (Anna Louisa Möring), 28606 (Charles Ferdinand Möring), 37757 (Charles Ferdinand Möring), 39411 (Theresa Henshaw Phillips, nee Miriam Mason Phillips) Suffolk County, Registry of Probate, Docket Numbers 28123 (Edward Phillips), 28238 (Edward Bromfield Phillips) (continued) NPSForm 10-900-4 (8-68) OMBApprovel No. 1024-0018 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historlc Places Continuation Sheet Section number . Page.
Beck-Warren House Cambridge (Middlesex County) Massachusetts - Printed Material Benjamin, Asher, The American Builder's Companion (1827) ,The Practice of Architecture (1833) Cross, Amanda, Death in a Tenured Position (New York, E. P. Dutton, 1981) Dictionary of American Biography, entries on Charles Beck, Henry Clarke Warren Green, Martin, The Mount Vernon Street Warrens: A Boston Story, 1860-1910 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1989) Harvard College, Archives, Professor Charles Beck , Class Records, Edward Bromfield Phillips, Henry Clarke Warren , College Papers, vols.
X, XVII , "A House of Literature", The Nation, 12 January 1900 Quinan, Jack, "The transformation of an Asher Benjamin house," The Magazine ANTIQUES, August, 1982 (end) NP$ Form 10-000-4 (8-66) United States Department of the Interlor National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet OMB Approvel No. 1024-0018 Section number 10 Page Beck-Warren House Cambridge (Middlesex County) Massachusetts - 10. GEOGRAPHICAL DATA Verbal Boundary Description The boundary of the Beck-Warren House is a rectangular 7700 square foot parcel shown as Lot 27 of Cambridge Assessor's Plat #136 and is indicated by a heavy black line on the accompanying map. Boundary Justification The Beck-Warren House boundary includes that portion of the property that has been associated with the house since its move in 1900.
While the historic dimensions of the Charles Beck property are still evident (the property originally consisted on Lots 26 and 27 of Plat #136), the remainder of the lot was redeveloped with the Harvard Union Building (McKim, Mead & White, 1900) after it was bequeathed to the President and Fellows of Harvard College by the terms of Henry Warren's will. (end) N WARREN HOUSE BASEMENT FLOOR PLAN BLDG # 339 10 20 DWG # 339_-1BP.DWG DATE- 6/1/93 COMP # 339 -1(XXX) BECK-WARREN HOUSE, 1 PRESCO CAMBRIDGE, MIDDLESEX CTY, M/ NW ROOM SW ROOM ANTE- ROOM SUNPORCH KITCHEN BACK STAIR? PANTRY? - PARLOR HALL DINING.
ROOM SE ROOM WARREN HOUSE FIRST FLOOR PLAN BLDG # 339 0 10 20 DWG # 339_01BP.DWG DATE- 9/30/93 COMP # 339 01(XXX) BECK-WARREN HOUSE, 1 PRESCOTT ST CAMBRIDGE, MIDDLESEX CTY, MA SUNPORCH BATH (STORAGE) HALL BEDROOM (OFFICE) LERARY AQUARIUM ROOM WARREN HOUSE SECOND FLOOR PLAN BLDG # 339 10 20 DWG # 339_02BP.DWG DATE- 6/1/93 COMP # 339 02(XXX) BECK-WARREN HOUSE, 1 PRESCOTT ST CAMBRIDGE, MIDDLESEX CTY, MA (OFFICE) (STORAGE 2 GALLÉR LEVEL HALL (OFFICE) (STORAGH WARREN HOUSE ATTIC FLOOR PLAN BLDG #339 0 10 20 DWG # 339_03BP.DWG DATE- 6/1/93 COMP # 339 03(XXX) BECK-WARREN HOUSE, 1 PRESCOTT ST CAMBRIDGE, MIDDLESEX CTY, MA WARREN HOUSE ROOF PLAN BLDG # 339 0 10 20 DWG # 339_04BP.DWG DATE- 6/1/93 COMP # 339 04(XXX) BECK-WARREN HOUSE, 1 PRESCOTT CAMBRIDGE, MIDDLESEX CTY, MA S UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR NATIONAL PARK SERVICE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES EVALUATION/RETURN SHEET REQUESTED ACTION: NOMINATION PROPERTY Beck--Warren House NAME : MULTIPLE Cambridge MPS NAME : STATE & COUNTY: MASSACHUSETTS, Middlesex DATE RECEIVED: DATE OF 16TH DAY: DATE OF WEEKLY LIST: 4/05/96 5/02/96 DATE OF PENDING LIST: 4/16/96 DATE OF 45TH DAY: 5/20/96 REFERENCE NUMBER: 96000520 NOMINATOR: STATE REASONS FOR REVIEW: APPEAL: N DATA PROBLEM: N LANDSCAPE: N LESS THAN 50 YEARS: OTHER: Y PDIL: N PERIOD: N PROGRAM UNAPPROVED: REQUEST: N SAMPLE: N SLR DRAFT: Y NATIONAL: N N COMMENT WAIVER: N ACCEPT RETURN REJECT DATE ABSTRACT/SUMMARY COMMENTS: RECOM.
/CRITERIA Quept REVIEWER louick Andus TELEPHONE DISCIPLINE DATE Nistorian 5/20/96 DOCUMENTATION see attached comments Y/N see attached SLR Y/N #1 Beck-Warrentouse 1 Prescott Street, Cambriage iA (huddlesex Couuty) April 1995 Necatives: Hawvard Gazette south and tast elevs., facinp Nw PHOTO BY KRIS SNIBBE WARREN MOUSE ROLL #Z FRAME #2 Beck-WarrenHouse I Hescot Street, cquabrestxCirunty, NA April:1995 Necatives: Haward Gazette Sowh and tast elevatinus, lookingNw PHOTO BY KRIS SNIBBE WARREN HOUSE ROLL 3 Beck-warren Howaondse I Prescitt Street, Nuddlesex County, MA April 1995 Necatives: Haward Gazette South and West elevatious, looking NE PHOTO BY KRIS SNIBBE WARREN MOUSE ROLL #4 Beck- Warren House I Prescitt Street in cquibatesex County, MA April:1995 Necatives: Harvard Gazette Norn and west elevatious, looking sw PHOTO BY KRIS SNIBBE #5 Beck- Warren House 1 Prexcit Steet, Cambridge, Middlesexcounty, Aprie 1995 Negatives: Harvard Gazette Notta and tast elevatious, looking sw PHOTO BY KRIS SNIBBE WARREN HOUSE ROLLa #17 #6 Beck-Warren House i Prescott Street, Cambridge (Nuddlesex Cruuty) April 1995 Negatives: Harrard Gazette South elevation, looking NE PHOTO BY KRIS SNIBBE WARREN HOUSE R #7 Beck-warren House 1 Prescitt Street, Cambridge Chuddlesek Corn April 1995 Negatives: Haward Gazette souta elevation, entrance derail, looking PHOTO BY KRIS SNIBBE WARREN MOUSE ROLL#3 # Beck- warren House 1 Prexott Street, Cambridge (Middlesek Cty) MA April 1995 Negatives: Harvard Gazette East elevation, dormer detail, looking NW PHOTO BY KRIS SNIBBE WARREN HONSE ROLLS # 3INSS #9 Beck-Warren House 1 Prescot Street, Canubridag (nuddlesexCty.) MA Aprie 1995 Necatives: Harvard Grazette Fast elevation, chimney detail, looking Nw HARVARD GAZETTE PHOTO BY MARY LEE WARREN MOUSE ROLL #10 Beck-Warreuttouse 1 Prescht Strect, Cambndig (Nuddlesex Cty.) MA Aprie 1995 Negatives: Haward Gazette Norhwest elovarins, sunporch detail, looking SE PHOTO BY KRIS SNIBBE WARREN HOUSE Roll 3 #13 #/1 Beck-WarrenHouse 1 Prescot Street, Cambride (Miädlesek Cty), MA April 1995 Necatives: Haward Gazette Dining Rom, window detail, facings HARVARD GAZETTE PHOTO BY MARY LEE WARREN HOUSE ROLLS 034 #12 Beck-Warren House 1 Presott Street, Cambrdge (Middlesex County), M.
April 1995 Negatives: Hanvard Gazette Dining room, window detaul, facing SE HARVARD GAZETTE PHOTO BY MARY LEE WARREN HOUSE RoLL 8 -.,- #13 Beck-Warren House 1 Prescott Street, Cambridge (Middlesck Cty.), u Aprie 19.95 Negatives: Harard Grazete Dining Room, cornice detaul, showing orignal burse with presuned colovial Revival archu HARVARD GAZETTE PHOTO BY MARY LEE WARREN HOUSE ROLLS LLGA WARRENHOUSE ROLL# # N #14 Beck-Warren House 1. Prescort Street, Cambridge (huddeesek County) Aprie 1995 Negatives: Harvard Gazette Parlor, partition detail (archway), Jacing HARVARD GAZETTE PHOTO BY MARY LEE WARREN HOUSE ROLL9 # READING ROOM #15 Beck-warren House 1 Prescott Street, Cambridge (MiddlesexCty.), us Aprie 1995 Negatives: Hanard Gazete Dining Room, door, facing E HARVARD GAZETTE PHOTORYRREN HOUSE ROLC 8 I Z Please, the last prson leaving tumn out the ligito?
Tharks 87200 ZSCOHNZOOYM 034 0341 034 #16 Beck-warrentruse 1 Prescott Strect, Cambridag (Middeesex Cty.) MA Aprie 1995 Negatives: Haward Gazelte Entrance Doors, detail, faceugs HARVARD GAZETTE PHOTO BY MARY LEE WARREN HOUSE ROLL8# Beck-warren House l Prescott Strect, Cambridge (Middlesex Cty.) April1995 Negatives: Haward Gazette second feor stairhall, facing sw ARVARD GAZETTE PHOTO BYARREN HOUSE ROLLT MARY LEE MECOMO 32FS 770025004 N38OVM PAPEA UR59 KODAK TH1S PAPSA MANUF URE9 K99AS MANU RED MAN UnED KODAK THIS MANM PAPER URE9 KORAK AEO #18 Beck-WarrenHouse 1 Prescutt Strect, Cambriage (Middlesex Cty.)) Aprie 1995 Neçatives: Hawara Gazette second flor stairhall, derail, facug w WARREN MOUSE ROLL S # 26 HARVARD GAZETTE PHOTO BY MARY LEE #19 Beck-warren House 1 Prexott street, Cambondze CNuddlexekcry.
Apiie 1995 Necatives: Haward Gazette second foor stawtall, detacl" secret" room, HARVARD GAZETTE PHOTO BY MARY LEE WARREN HOUSE ROLLA# #20 Beck-WanrenHouse 1 Prescott Strect, Canibnage (MA) CMuddlesex April 1995 Nesatives: Haward Gazette Bathroom, detacl, facing W HARVARD GAZETTE PHOTO BY MARY LEE WARREN MOUSE ROLL7 .007 HALOVIANY 3dyd 700. 4341 034 .001 3801.
83d H3dVd # 21 XVG 0380 Beck-Warren House 1 Prescort Street, Cambriage, Middlesex Cty, M ApRie 1995 Negatives: Haward Gazette library, from gallery level (3rd feoor), looking HARVARD GAZETTE PHOTO BY MARY LEE WARREN HOUSEROLL 5HI REO #22 Beck-Warren House 1 Prescott Street, cambridig, MiddlesexCty, MA Aprie 1995 Negatives: Hanard Gazette Library, fireplace detail, facing E HARVARD GAZETTE PHOTO BY MARY LEE WARREN HOUSE ROLL 038 034 #23 Beck- Warren House 1 Prescott Street, Cambridge, Middlesex Cty Aprie 1995 Necatives: Haward Gazetle Library, facing N HARVARD GAZETTE PHOTO BY MARY LEE WARREN HOUSE ROCL#4 #24 Beck-WarrenHouse 1 Prescot street, Cambrideg, MiddlesekCty., April 1995 Negatives: Harvard Gazette.
Librans, anaclypta wallpaper detail HARVARD GAZETTE PHOTO BY MARY LEF WARREN MOUSE POLL7 PAPER URED KODAK THIS PA MANUFAGTURI KODAK THIS PAPER MANUFAGTURED KODAK MANU THIS PAPER MANUFAGTUREO KODAK I PAPER a300 #25 Beck-Warren House 1 Prexott Street, Cambridie, Middlesex Count April 1995 Negatives: Harvard Gazetle Bedroom, Roometle, JacingSE HARVARD GAZETTE PHOTO BY WARREN HOUSE MARY LEE RoLL 6 #2 ARD APER UREO PAPEA UAED PAP #26 Beck-WawrenHouse 1 Prescott Street, Kambridge, Middlesex Cty., MA April 1995 Negatives: Harvard Gazette Bedroom, Roomette detärl , facing SE HARVARD GAZETTE PHOTO BY MARY LEE WARREN HOUSE ROLLT #34 #27 Beck-WarrenHouse 1 Prescott Street, Cambridoe, Middlesex Cty., MA Aprie 1995 Negatires: Harvard Gazette Bedrom, Fireplace detail, facing W HARVARD GAZETTE PHOTO BYWARREN HOUSE ROLL 6 = MADUIREMARY LEE #28 Beck-Warren House 1 Prescoet Street, cambridge, Müddlesex ctg, MA Negatives: Harvard Arclives Penüil and waterchlor renderup, ca.
1830 Artrot Watercolor, 1 Prescott St. Camb Hist. Comm, photocopy al HU.V. 142, Harvand Ach 13 HARVARD STREET (100.0) No.2/ RTOO 1200.02 No. 26 VNION (260.r0) Na. 3r 16990 109)L.5 1895240605 Ve.20 (09,0 QUINCY No.B 1060 03.122 No ?7 PRESCOTT 7700700 z.0 WARE 198.1 Nº.34 18060 (93-0278717) 135 59 188-10 (822.70 15037 No./! 6300 (88.13) (oger STREET CARPENTEÇO VISUAL CENTER CENTER (109.30) STREET 110.372 No./3 (780): 708%% (25700) No./3 (9259 N6S2 Nas e50 =557 ezzu layerlagencayyn (70) STREET BROADWAY Beck-Warren House I Prescott Street Cambridse, Middlesex Cty. NA CITY- OF CAMBRIDGE Stale.
/=40 December 197% Land Couri Dimensions Are Me Assessor 5PTät #136 CI TET CHAC HAN LIBERTATE The Commonwealth of Massachusetts William Francis Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth Massachusetts Historical Commission March 28, 1996 Carol Shull Keeper National Register of Historic Places Department of the Interior National Park Service P. O. Box 37127 Washington, D. C. 20013-7127 RECEIVED 2280 APR - 5 1996 NAT. REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES NATIONAL PARK SERVICE Dear Ms. Shull: Enclosed please find the following nomination form: Beck-Warren House, 1 Prescott Street, Cambridge (Middlesex County), Massachusetts, 02138 The nomination has been voted eligible by the State Review Board and has been signed by the State Historic Preservation Officer. Owners were notified of pending State Review Board consideration 30- 75 days before the meeting and were afforded the opportunity to comment.
Sincerely, Betsy truedlers Betsy Friedberg National Register Director Massachusetts Historical Commission enclosure cc: William B. King, Chairperson, Cambridge Historical Commission Frank Duehay, Acting Mayor, City of Cambridge Sarah Zimmerman, Preservation Planner, Cambridge Historical Commission Kathy A. Spiegelman Susan Flannery, Director, Cambridge Public Library 220 Morrissey Boulevard, Boston, Massachusetts 02125 - (617) 727-8470 Fax: (617) 727-5128 TDD: 1-800-392-6090
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