Page 56 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide 2017 - Boston

54  BOST ON AREA B Y AREA

in the muted
Williamsburg Colonial
style, subsequent
art history detective
work revealed that
Bostonians had much
more flamboyant taste
than, for example, the
wealthy Virginians.
Thus, the house has
been restored with
touches typical of such
upper-class aspirations.
The wallpaper in the
main entrance has a
border of scenes from
Pompeii and scores of
lithographs showing
views of European
cities. The colors
Flamboyantly decorated dining room of the Otis House Museum throughout the rest
of the house are bright,
e Otis House boarding house. Historic New and gilt detail flashes from
Museum England saved the building moldings and furniture.
in 1916 and established its Inquire about the Beacon
141 Cambridge St. Map 1 C3. Tel (617) headquarters here. A gallery Hill and Haymarket walking
994-5820.  Charles/MGH, Govern- in the house depicts the time tours that depart from Otis
ment Center. Open 11am–4:30pm when the building was a House Museum.
Wed–Sun (Dec–Feb: Fri–Sun). & ^
8 ∑ historicnewengland.org boarding house in the 1950s.
Visitors who tour the Otis
Designed by Charles Bulfinch house, now restored to the r Old West Church
for Harrison Gray Otis, way it looked in around 1800, 131 Cambridge St. Map 1 C3. Tel (617)
co-developer of Beacon Hill are often surprised by the 227-5088.  Charles/ MGH, Bowdoin.
(see pp44–5) and Boston’s third bright, even gaudy, style of Open for Sunday worship. 5 11am
mayor, this 1796 town mansion decoration. Although the Sun. ^ 7 ∑ oldwestchurch.org
was built to serve the needs of rooms were initially decorated
a young man on the way up A wood-frame church built
in Federal Boston. Descended on this site in 1737 was used
from both British colonial as a barracks for British soldiers
administrators and Boston during the occupation of
revolutionary patriots, Otis Boston (see pp22–3) in the
took a practical view of local period just prior to the
government that paved the American Revolution. The
way for Boston’s develop ment British later razed the original
as a powerhouse of inter national church in 1775, since they
trade and finance. Having suspected revolutionary
already made a fortune in the sympathizers of using the
land development of Beacon steeple to signal Continental
Hill, Otis commissioned this Army troops across the Charles
home as a showpiece, where River. Many of the church’s
he could entertain. It was the timbers were used to con struct
first of three homes Bulfinch the African Meeting House (see
designed for him. p51). Asher Benjamin (see p34),
After Otis moved out, the a protégé of Charles Bulfinch,
house fell on hard times as designed the current red-brick
the West End neighborhood struc ture, erected in 1806.
around it absorbed successive The swag-ornamented clocks
waves of immigration, and on the sides of the tower are
tenements replaced single distinctive landmarks, while
family homes. By the 1830s inside there is a superb Fisk
the Otis house was serving as tracker-action pipe organ.
a ladies’ Turkish bath and later This organ is often played
became a patent medicine Red-brick façade of Asher Benjamin’s in classical organ concerts
shop before ending up as a Old West Church and in recordings.

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