Shocking an international audience, a developer filed to demolish the Brookline house of H.H. Richardson, one of America’s most renowned architects, artists and visionaries. Also slated for demolition is the neighboring house of John Charles Olmsted, son and partner of Frederick Law Olmsted, the father of public parks in America who also lived nearby.
Actions over the next 18 months will decide their fate.
For the demolition delay hearing in December, Stonehurst submitted the following letter:
Dear members of the Brookline Preservation Commission,
Brookline’s Richardson House and nearby Olmsted Houses are truly exceptional places of memory containing powerful stories about two of America’s most influential artists, planners and visionaries. Their collaborative civic buildings and public parks provide not only models, but anchors for American society, tethers that hold our communities together in the face of many challenges.
Richardson’s own bedroom in Brookline speaks of a great artist’s extraordinary dedication to his work even as he became increasingly debilitated. Accommodating the bedroom for his own disabilities, Richardson installed corkboards on the walls so that he could work from bed surrounded by drawings tacked up by his draftsmen. He attached pulleys to his starry ceiling to haul himself out of that bed when sparked by an idea.
Stonehurst, the Robert Treat Paine Estate in Waltham is one of those brilliant and uniquely American ideas that secured international fame for Richardson. The once private estate in Waltham has become the kind of vital and meaningful community center that Richardson and Olmsted so famously envisioned for this country.
Like the Richardson house, Stonehurst was threatened by development and preservation organizations were reluctant to take on the property without an endowment. Activists were able to convince the City of Waltham of its extraordinary value, and now Stonehurst belongs to the people and is one of the most popular places in the city for residents to find individual peace or gather with friends and strangers. A tiny staff, a Friends group, and close partnerships with the local library and schools ensure its place in the community. We make it work and you can too.
You have an opportunity here to leave your own meaningful legacy for Brookline and the nation by preserving the H.H. Richardson House for the people in perpetuity.
Sincerely,
Ann Clifford, Curator
Stonehurst, the Robert Treat Paine Estate
An American masterwork by H.H. Richardson & F.L. Olmsted owned by the City of Waltham