The document summarizes the history of the first house built in 1796 for lawyer and politician Harrison Gray Otis in Boston's West End neighborhood. Designed by architect Charles Bulfinch in the Federal style, the three-story mansion exemplified the classical proportions and detail of the period. After changing hands over the decades, it was restored in 1960 and remains as one of the few surviving examples of high-style Federal-era homes in Boston.

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THE FIRST HARRISON GRAY OTIS HOUSE
Hamze Machmouchi
Critical Reading and Research 2
December 15th, 2015

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ABSTRACT
The Otis House is the last surviving mansion in Bowdoin Square in Boston's West End
neighborhood and also the first of the three houses built by Charles Bulfinch in 1796 for lawyer,
business man and politician Harrison Gray Otis who was instrumental in developing nearby
Beacon Hill, served in Congress, and was a mayor of Boston. The house’s design reflects the
classical proportions and delicate detail of the Federal style. It later became a clinic and a
middle-class boarding house until it was bought by William Sumner Appleton in 1916 and
restored carefully in 1960 by Abbott Lowell Cummings.

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LIST OF FIGURES
Harrison Gray Otis........................................................................................................................ 10
Bowdoin Square............................................................................................................................ 10
Charles Bulfinch ........................................................................................................................... 11
Bulfinch’s house ........................................................................................................................... 12
Elevation Plan of The First Harrison Gray Otis House ................................................................ 13
The Hall......................................................................................................................................... 13
The Dining Room.......................................................................................................................... 14
The Withdrawing Room................................................................................................................ 14
Map of Boston in 1800 ................................................................................................................. 15
The Parlor Room........................................................................................................................... 16
Mott’s Medicated Baths................................................................................................................ 16
Boarding Room............................................................................................................................. 17
The First Harisson Gray Otis House............................................................................................. 18

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In 1796, Harrison Gray Otis (fig.1) was one of the most influential figures of its
time. He was a congressman, a prominent lawyer graduated from Harvard and a rebellious
character that fought for the Revolution. In 1786, he was a captain in the Independent Light
Infantry, a militia company formed in the shadow of Daniel Shays's Rebellion and, one year
later, a major in the Suffolk County militia. At only 30 years old, he purchased, among several
other business partners, Copley Pasture on Beacon Hill, an investment that enriched him greatly
and led to the development of Boston's most fashionable residential district. This business
transaction allowed him to build a house that represents his position in society. A house that
would show his influences, education and his financial stability to the people of Boston. Located
on 141 Cambridge Street in the prestigious neighborhood of Bowdoin Square (fig.2 and 9), the
house was exposed to the mass and was ideal for people who wanted to be noticed in society. To
be able to achieve his vision, he hired his longtime friend and architect Charles Bulfinch which
had freshly started the construction of his Massachusetts State House (1795).
Charles Bulfinch (fig.3) was born into a well off Boston family in Bowdoin
Square (fig.4) his father was a physician and a graduate of Harvard College and Edinburg
University. Bulfinch took a degree at Harvard in 1781. From 1785 until 1787, he took the “18th
century gentleman grand tour of Europe” in which he met Thomas Jefferson in Paris and famous
architect Robert Adam in England which became his greatest inspirations when he came back in
Boston. He is believed to be the first American architect by profession. All his works were in the
fashionable rococo version of the 18th-century classical style popularized in Britain by Robert
Adam from the 1760s but they were heavier and more provincial than the originals, but for that
very reason all the more acceptable. They were so well received that Bulfinch was encouraged to
erect, on speculation, a 16-house block of uniform proportion, scale, and composition in the

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manner made famous and fashionable by New Town in Edinburgh, Scotland. Eventually this
project, named Tontine Crescent and begun in 1793, was an enormous success, and it set a
pattern for similar blocks which give the Beacon Hill area of Boston its distinctive character. But
Bulfinch was caught in the brief depression following Jay's Treaty in November 1794 and could
not raise enough money to finish it immediately; he went bankrupt in January 1796. This
experience had practical results. Indeed, he wrote “My inexperience and that of my agents in
conducting business of this nature … led me to surrender all my property… and I found myself
reduced to my personal exertions for support…. "1 . He became dependent on architectural fees
for his living and fortunately, his reputation was unaffected. Harrison Gray Otis, among other
friends, rallied round, and he soon had plenty of commissions.
One of them was to design the plans (fig.5) and supervise the construction of
Harrison Gray Otis’s house. His client was a man that liked to entertain his guests and he was
great at it according to John Quincy Adams. He also was a well-travelled man that went to China
(that had recently opened its first port), among many other countries. Keeping these facts in mind
about his friend, he designed the house in a certain way that shows the grandiosity of the Otis’s
lifestyle. Indeed, when the visitors reach the front entry hall (fig.6), they will be confronted to
walls that are covered by paintings and engravings that shows their interests in politics and
entertainment and among them he high ceiling, the large and graceful staircase, the fancy
plasterwork at the cornice, meant to have an impact on. However, in spite of its grand
appearance, visitors did not spend much time in the hall, as it was unheated and almost empty of
furniture. On a more practical level, hallway space was also used for storing extra furniture. The
1 Bulfinch,Charles,and Ellen Susan Bulfinch.The Life and Letters of Charles Bulfinch,Architect,with Other Family
Papers.New York: B. Franklin,1973.45.

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dining room (fig.7) on the first floor and the withdrawing room (fig.8) on the second floor were
more suitable rooms to entertain their visitors. Both are well heated and both are well exposed to
the sunlight. The dining room was also used as a parlor. This room was the most convenient to
host dinner parties because it led to the pantry, the kitchen, and the wine cellar. The room was
too formal to be used for simple family meals and it too much trouble to set up the large table
and heat the room for only a few people. The withdrawing room was called such because after
long dinner parties, the Otises and their guests “withdrew” to this room. It is the most elegantly
decorated room in the house, and seems to have been special to the Otises as it is the only room
to have solid mahogany doors, a really difficult to acquire type of wood. Other doors in the
house were made of less costly wood that was either painted or grained to look like mahogany.
The withdrawing room is also the only public room in the house that was designed to be used at
night. Unlike the downstairs parlor (fig.10) and dining room, this room has a chandelier. The
mirrors on the doors and walls helped to reflect the light and brighten the room during evening
parties. The furniture in this room reflects the many different kinds of activities that went on
here. Tables could also be set up and used for family meals as needed. In the winter especially,
the family probably spent most of their time in this room, as it was easier to heat one room and
use it for many activities than to heat several rooms. In contrast to the stark balance of the
architecture, the décor is much more vibrant. Bulfinch’s design for the Otis House shows typical
characteristics of the Federal style, including a heavy emphasis on symmetry, and classical
window shapes like the fanlight windows over the main entrance and on the third floor, and the
very fashionable Palladian window on the second floor. The Federal style continues from the
façade of the house into the design of the interiors. Each window has a corresponding door on
the opposite wall. This type of symmetry is made possible by false doors over the dining room

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and the withdrawing room. The Otis House is an excellent example of a high-style home in the
Federal era.
Indeed, “The use of the words "Federal style" reflects upon commonly held
axioms regarding artistic taste. It also applies to a new period in the history of American
development, when colonialism had been discarded and new ideas for government and society
made this, perhaps, the most vital period of American history. It is important to note that while
the framers of the Constitution were developing new concepts of government, they depended for
justification upon the prevailing liberal political theories of the 18th century. Developing as it did
out of the late Colonial period, Federal architecture in particular was backward looking in certain
aspects.”2 Rooted as it was in the architecture of the late Colonial era it represented a natural
stylistic evolution from that earlier and wholly provincial English mode of building. The three-
story town house, the ubiquitous block-type house with its doors in the center of the long side...
At the same time, however, the Federal style was a new mode developing new concepts of
proportion and scale and vitalizing equally new systems of ornament. In its Englishness it is
thoroughly a traditional style, but it also has moments of sparkling originality, and certain traits
which can be identified as uniquely American appear for the first time. Where most Federal style
domestic buildings were rectangular blocks, the use of interior space was anything but
symmetrical. Rooms would often be of different shapes. Neoclassical design with its
characteristic swags, urns, and Greek and Roman figures, was increasingly popular in the young
democratic country. One of the main federalist political party’s intentions was actually to build
2 Geller, L. D., and Charles Bulfinch.The Architecture of Elegance: The Tradition of Charles Bulfinch and the
Plymouth Federal Savings Bank.Plymouth: PilgrimSociety,1976.15.

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The United States following the roman political pattern. Harrison Gray Otis was actually one to
promote it as he later became a senator.
As he was gaining more power and influence and as Bowdoin square was more
and more inhabited, Otis decided to sell his property to painter John Osborn in 1801 and moved
out into his second house that was built by Bulfinch in the same style in very refined
neighborhood of Beacon Hill until he sold it again to John Osbourne in 1806 to move out to his
third house in front of the Boston Common. The largest mansion he ever had. All of the three
houses were very similar except for their interiors and their number of stories. The first and
second houses had three stories whereas the third one had four which was something was
completely new in the United States. They all have the same type of symmetry characteristic of
the Federal Style. However, each house had different types of fanned windows, different sizes
and different type of front entries.
The first house after being bought by John and Catherine Osborn was then bought
by Doctor and Mrs. Mott, who ran a spa and medical clinic there from 1833 until 1854 (fig.11).
In 1854, the house was bought by four unmarried sisters: Ms. Williams. They then turned the
house into a prestigious boarding house (fig.12) until it was bought by William Sumner
Appleton, the founder of the Society of Preservation of New England’s Antiques (SPNEA) and
made the house its headquarters. The Neighborhood in which the house sits went through a tough
Urban Renewal where multiple historic houses (like Bulfinch’s house) were destroyed. The
house is one of the few that are still standing. However, the house moved over 42 feet and 11
inches from its original location. Bowdoin Square and its surroundings eventually became what
we know today of the West End. The “deslumming” plan voted in the 1950’s forced to move
historical immigrant communities like the Irish to build luxury condos.

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The First Harrison Gray Otis house is one great example of what federal
architecture looked like back then. Bulfinch showed to the world his understanding of spaces as
elements that coexist symmetrically. It was without any surprise that his work had such a
resonance that it made him able to shape most of what we know today of Boston. As the designer
of the Massachusetts State House, the Connecticut State House and part of the Commons
renovation, it was only a question of time before his work would reach the ear of the president
himself: James Monroe. In 1818, he was hired by the commissioner of public buildings to
replace Latrobe. He became the third architect of the Capitol. Bulfinch designed the domed
center building of the Capitol and oversaw its construction between 1818 and 1826. He died on
April the 15th, 1844 in Boston when he was 80 years old. As for Harrison Gray Otis, after the
Federal Party dissolved in 1822, he became the third mayor of Boston. He continued his
profession of lawyer until he died four years after his friend, on October 8th, 1848.

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Figure 1
Figure 2

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Figure 3

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Figure 4

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Figure 5
Figure 6

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Figure 7
Figure 8

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Figure 9

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Figure 11
Figure 10

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Figure 12

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Figure 13

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Bulfinch, Charles, and Ellen Susan Bulfinch. The Life and Letters of Charles Bulfinch,
Architect, with Other Family Papers, New York: B. Franklin, 1973.
2. Geller, L. D., and Charles Bulfinch. The Architecture of Elegance: The Tradition of
Charles Bulfinch and the Plymouth Federal Savings Bank. Plymouth: Pilgrim Society,
1976.
3. Kirker, Harold. The Architecture of Charles Bulfinch. Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1969.
4. Kirker, Harold, and James Kirker. Bulfinch's Boston, 1787-1817. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1964.
5. "Otis House." — Historic New England. Accessed December 16, 2015.
http://www.historicnewengland.org/historic-properties/homes/otis-house/otis-house.
6. "Charles Bulfinch." Encyclopedia of World Biography. 2004. Encyclopedia.com.
(December 16, 2015). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3404700981.html
7. Coltman, V. (2006). Fabricating the Antique: Neoclasscism in Britain, 1760-1800.
Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
8. Loughran, T. (2007). The Republic in Print: Print Culture in the Age of U.S. Nation
Building, 1770–1870. New York, Columbia University Press
9. "Charles Bulfinch." Architect of the Capitol. Accessed December 16, 2015.
http://www.aoc.gov/architect-of-the-capitol/charles-bulfinch.
10. Wikipedia. Accessed December 16, 2015.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_End,_Boston.
11. "Boston History in a Minute: Harrison Gray Otis House." YouTube. Accessed December
16, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQxK4DgkdDM.