13 Carruth Street

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Image No. 12162 13 Carruth Street, photograph May 30, 2011.

 

No. 12161 13 Carruth Street in 1898 before renovation.
No. 12165 13 Carruth Street with new roof-line 1898.

 

Date of construction: 1895

Architect: Loring & Phipps –  mentioned in Volume 49 of American Architect and Building News, issued July 6, 1895

 

 

The following is from Ashmont by Douglass Shand-Tucci

The Misses Bethmann House, 13 Carruth, built in 1895, is surely the offspring, legitimate or not of Albert W. Cobb, of Cobb and Stevens, one of America’s best designers of this period, some of whose Ashmont work is illustrated in the frontispiece.  All houses on Carruth, however grand, try rather absurdly to be cottagy in some way, but 13 really is a cottage–infinitely charming and full of character, rather casually build, sometimes maddeningly eccentric and , above all, curiously elegant and nonchalant in a very Edwardian way.  Do observe how the roof is pulled down in a long foreslope over the glassed-in veranda, while above it the unusual inset dormers sharply punctuate that foreslope, the whole design on the Carruth Street side coming to rest on the lng beam that raches from aboe the front door to the porch’s end, beautifully ordering a facade that could not be simpler or more cogent.  It is a kind of Arts and Crafts Edwardian Saltbox, couched in the mode made popular by Gustave Stickley’s Craftsman magazine, the December 1908 issue of which illustrates a very similar house.  Enough architecture!  Both 15 and 13 Carruth are notable in other departments of life as well.

Local lore has always insisted 13 Carruth was a “love cottage, in the German style, of a lady of that nationality not married to the man of her affections.   So proper an address as Curruth Street in the 1890s seems problematic for such a tale, but neighborhood oral tradition ought never to be dismissed by an historian out of hand.  In this case, however, as research proceeded, the romantic tale seemed less and less likely, for while the first inhabitants of 13 Carruth were indeed tow women, their profession even more than their address seemed to argue against scandal.  Both were “kindergartners,” and rather important ones too.  Frieda Bethman was principal of the Thomas W. Hart Kindgarten, and Emily Bethman was principal of the Julaia Ward Howe School kindergarten, both in the 180s in South Boston.  Back Bay residents (at the Hotel Berkeley on Boylston Street) until moving to Ashmont, where in 1895 Freieda built 13 Carruth, both ladies lived there for nearly twenty hears.  Their relationship is unclear.  Emilie, in the street directories , is call “Mrs.,” and she may have been the widow of a Dedham civil engineer and the mother of Frieda, who appears in legal documents as unmarried–and as the owner of the Carruth Street house.

They were among the first public school teachers of their kind, for it was not until 1888 that such kindergartens were started in the Boston public schools.  J. E. Burke and J. J. Fish observe in Fifty Years of Boston that kindergarten teachers were “the first social workers,” and the School Committee reports of the kindergarten program in the 1890s make very plain how demanding it was: “children who come from home s where moral and intellectual development is almost an impossibility … are brought under the influence of highly cultivated teachers, notes one report–teachers who after a morning in the classroom were then expected regularly to visit and monitor their pupils’ homes.  Such highly trained Boston ladies were surely likely to have brought more serious things than spice an scandal to the proper confines of Carruth Street.  They did, but it turns out that they contributed as well as least the spice.  For one source at last emerged who recalled both sides of these women’s lives; who remembered that while the Bethmanns were widely admired in the school system for their distinguished and innovative work in this new educational method in America, the younger woman was extraordinarily attractive and dressed in so beautiful a way as to turn all and sundry heads.  She recalled, too, that the carriage of rather a famous man was regularly to be seen at the Bethmann door and that Carruth Street gradually understood, the more easily because Miss Bethmann’s mother was in residence as chaperone.

Furthermore, there may been be something to the  “German style” local lore insists on, which by no means undermines our discussion of the house’s architecture, for fashions in German domestic design in the 1890s were very Anglophile.  The Bethmann ladies may have (the evidence is not conclusive) studied in Germany the Froebel kindergarten system, thus making the abstract geometry of the Carruth Street facade of their house even more interesting, for it is a kind of visual correlative to the Froebel system, form which Frank Lloyd Wright is often said to have derived so much of his felling for abstract form.

The following is from the inventory form for Carruth Street – Peabody Square, Boston Landmarks Commission

Originally owned by Frieda M. Bethmann, who lived here with her mother, Mrs Emilie F. Bethmann, both women’s occupations are listed as “kindergartners” in the 1890’s Boston Directories. Frieda Bethmann was principal of the Thomas W. Hart Kindergarten and Emilie Bethmann was principal of the Julia Ward Howe School .Kindergarten Schools in Boston were started in 1888 and their teachers were sometimes called the first “social workers in Boston”. Kindergarten teachers, like the Bethmanns, enriched the lives of the City’s poor children. School committee reports of the kindergarten program in the 1890’s note in regard to its teachers that” children who come from homes where moral and intellectual development is almost an impossibility… are brought under the influence of highly cultivated teachers.” The Bethmanns, pioneers in their field, were said to have been admired within the school system as innovators. They lived at 13 Carruth Street for about 20 years. By 1933, Frank E.D. Talbot, manager at 99 Chauncv Street, Boston,lived here.

Carruth Street is the premiere street in this neighborhood in terms of noteworthy residential architecture. Highlights of this street include the grouping of houses at 12 Lombard (corner of Carruth), 13 Carruth Street and 15 Carruth Street. 13 and 15 exhibit Medieval qualities as interpreted via the Shingle Style. These Medieval qualities are most evident in the overhanging gables, wood shingle materials and diamond shaped uppersash of 13 Carruth Street. Additionally, 13 Carruth Street features a sweeping roof line that is typical of Shingle Style residences as well as a side porch with multi – pane windows. Situated off the main entrance hall, a sun porch like this speaks to upper- middle class Americans’ discovery of a less formal way of living during the 1890’s. 13 and 15 Carruth Street are set back from each other in a way that showcases #12 Lombard Street, a substantial Queen Anne house with a main facade characterized by a recessed corner entrance porch, octagonal oriel and broad gable with two levels of overhangs.

13 and 15 CarruthStreet’s land was owned by the Newbury Five Cents Savings Bank in 1884 and by Susan H. Goodale in 1894. 13 Carruth Street was built in 1895 and has been attributed to Albert W. Cobb of Cobb and Stevens.

The following is from  Codman Square House Tour Booklet 2001

Year Built: 1895

Architect: Albert Winslow Cobb

Style: Shingle / Colonial Revival

Thirteen Carruth Street nonetheless looks, Janus-like back to the Georgian details of New England’s colonial past and ahead to the more intimate scale that would characterize American domestic architecture in the twentieth century.  And if there is a hint of seaside informality about 13 Carruth, that’s only to be expected from an architect best known for designing coastal summer cottages in his native Maine.  The result of all these influences is an idiosyncratic, almost eccentric house that expresses perfectly the breezily offhand elegance of the coming Edwardian age.

Stepping through the wide Dutch door, the hall’s William Morris wallpaper strikes a perfect Arts and Crafts note.  A built-in bench with cupboards stands along the front wall, while a glazed sun porch with wicker furniture and potted plants runs the full depth of the house to the left.  To the right is a small, comfortable parlor with diamond-paned bay window.  Directly ahead, the dining room’s corner china closet with arched door and applied wreath detail faces the fireplace opposite.  Connecting through the butler’s pantry at the rear is a large kitchen; whose wall stenciling was designed and executed by the present owner, who is also the author of most of the window treatments in the house.

Passing back to the front hall via the kitchen, one’s ascent to the second floor is arrested by a miniature library, with built-in bookcases, window seats and a vaulted ceiling, at the landing.  Above are a master bedroom with 1940s salmon-and-black tiled bath en suite,  a study, and two children’s bedrooms.  The study, papered in a strie paprika pattern with Greek-key border, is perhaps the most enchanting upstairs room, though not by much.  Fitted drawers and bookshelves to the left of the Colonial Revival fireplace are balanced on the opposite wall by a galleried shelf below the beamed ceiling.  Leaded and wood-sash windows cast their ingenuous eyes outward on a world made better by houses like this one.

Much of the following information comes from Our Family Portraiture, a privately-printed book produced by the descendants of the Dorchester Bethmanns.

13 Carruth Street, otherwise known as the Beehive, was built for Miss Frieda Bethmann in 1895. Frieda had come to the United States at the age of four, in 1872 with her family. Her father was a civil engineer at the Standard Sugar Refinery. Her mother owned the house at 31 Bushnell Street beginning some time between 1889 and 1984.

Her mother Emilie was actively involved in extending the number of free English-speaking kindergarten schools in Boston. She became the principal of the Julia Ward Howe Kindergarten School, bringing Frieda in as her assistant. Frieda became principal of the Thomas N. Hart Kindergarten School. Due to their interest in education, they became familiar with others in the field including Frances Folsom Cleveland, the wife of the US President. The Clevelands chose Frieda to become the kindergarten instructor for their daughters Ruth and Esther at the White House, and in 1896 the Boston School Committee granted Frieda a leave of absence. This was during Cleveland’s second term.

When she returned to Boston, she lived at the Beehive as her primary residence. The Bethmann family symbol is the bee, and the original door knocker had an image of a beehive with 13 bees. The family used the Beehive motif on furniture, linens and jewelry. However, folklore has it that the name was bestowed on the house due to the buzz of people and activity that occurred there.

The house originally had a gambrel roof with a dormer on the south side. The family has before and after photos of the house, both dated 1898. Today we have a scan of their before photo and a photo taken yesterday of the house as it appears after the roof was replaced in 1898. A sun porch was added to the left side of the house, and the roof was remade, leaving the peak at the same place. This required a long sweep down on the left side to cover the porch. The Boston Landmarks description includes the sentence: “Situated off the main entrance hall, a sun porch like this speaks to upper- middle class Americans’ discovery of a less formal way of living during the 1890’s.”


A photograph of a cemetery stone available on the internet indicates that mother and daughter are buried in Lewis County, Idaho. There must be a story waiting to be told of how they left Boston and traveled west and why.

Bill Buckingham, an owner of the house in the late 20th century, said: ”In accordance with Margery’s promise, I am chiming in to observe that these views of the sunroom were taken before a wide opening was created between the sunroom and the hall. (This opening is in roughly the same position as the the high window in the left-hand wall.) In our day, we also went in for wicker furniture, but we didn’t think of putting oriental rugs on the floor! The ceiling fixtures — obviously electric — show that the gaslight era was over when the photos were taken. The pipes running along the window wall reveal that the heating had already been changed from hot air to hot water. The hot air ducts are still embedded in the walls: some of the hot water pipes were actually run through them.”

owners from atlases

1894 no house on map, lot owned by Susan H. Goodale

1898 Freda M. Bethmann

1904 Frieda M. Bethmann

1910 Frieda M. Bethmann

1918 Miner Bethmann

1933 Grace D. Talbot

deed

Sept. 23, 1892 from Alexander G. Macomber to Emily F. Bethmann 2154.291  Bushnell Street

May 23, 1895 from Thomas J Goodale and Susan H. A. Goodale to Frieda M. Bethmann 2278.223  Lombard & Carruth Streets

no mention of a building

Boston Directory

1895

Emily F. Bethmann, Mrs. kindergartner, Howe School, h. 31 Bushnell

Frieda M. Bethmann, kndergartner, bds. 31 Bushnell

1896

Emily F. Bethmann, Mrs. kindergartner, Howe School, h. 13 Carruth

Frieda M. Bethmann kinderartner, bds. 13 Carruth

 

Skills

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April 4, 2020