No. 20221 15 Fairfax Street, photograph March 26, 2020.
Date of construction: 1888
Architect: Whitney Lewis
Style: Shingle
Building records final report dated July 12, 1888
Owner George T. Andrew
Architect W. Whitney Lewis
Building F. M. Severance
Though its English-born architect is better known for his houses and commercial buildings in the Queen Anne style, 15 Fairfax Street is a bold essay in the Shingle style. Note how the ornamental shingle work and porch railings remain subordinate to the larger mass of the house, whose simply gabled profile seems to command the horizon like the masted outline of a ship upon the sea.
Entering from the porch into an unusual curved-bay vestibule, the central hall lies ahead. A handsome mahogany dado with carved vine motif replaces the original, which was lost to unsympathetic alterations by previous owners. The family room to the left of the hall also serves as a music room. To the right is the living room, dominated by an inglenook fireplace with paneled chimney breast. A Celtic feeling distinguishes the mantel’s frieze and leafy pilaster capitals. Behind the living room is the dining room, with corner fireplace, which opens to a modern kitchen with leaded-glass cabinet doors.
At the top of the stair lie multiple bedrooms; most retain their original function, while others have been adapted for home-office use. Numerous child-friendly guest rooms and nurseries await visits from the owners’ grandchildren. All upstairs rooms enjoy the abundant light admitted by seemingly innumerable windows, many of which also invite splendid views of the neighborhood. One can readily imagine that before the trees grew up to obscure them, these views once extended to Dorchester Bay and the Blue Hills. Even now, however, the upper-floor windows and balconied porches enjoy an enviable prospect.
The following is from the Carruth Street — Peabody Square inventory form, Boston Landmarks Commission, following Shand-Tucci’s identification of this house as 13 Fairfax:
13 Fairfax Street, the Shingle Style residence described by Tucci as “this mountainous house” marks the southeastern corner of this area. Looming over the intersection of Fairfax, Westmoreland and “Little Fairfax Street’, this house was also designed by W. Whitney Lewis. Built in 1888, its original owner was George Andrew of Andrew and Sons, Boston wood engravers. By 1894, this house was owned by Anna and August C. Davies, a well-known Boston clothier. By the early 1930s, John W. Donahue, mariner, lived here.
note: It was Angus, not August Davies
first appearance on a map is in the 1889 Atlas – owner was Eliz. A. Andrew
deed
Apr. 29, 1886 from Herbert S. Carruth to Elizabeth A. Andrew, wife of George T. Andrew, Fairfax St lots B & D Book 1721 121
lot B had 10,065 sf and lot D 3,414 sf
Land trading goes on and Andrew ends up with a smaller lot B (7417 sf) and Lot C, which is also smaller in the first plan
Oct. 6, 1887 from Herbert S. Carruth to Elizabeth A. Andrew Fairfax Stre Book 1792 372
The house at Fairfax Street was built on Lot B. It was probably built in 1887-1888. The Boston directories show the following entries. George and Elizabeth seem to have moved in by 1888.
Boston Directory, 1887 has an entry for Geo. T. Andrew (John Andrew & Son), 5 Tmepl pl. h. 17 Arcadia, Dor.
Boston Directory, 1888 has an entry for Geo. T. Andrew (John Andrew & Son), 5 Temple pl. h. Fairfax, Ashmont
Aug. 24, 1893 Deed from Elizabeth A. Andrew and George T. Andrew to Anna Davies, wife of Angus C. Davies, Book 2150 fol 33
Boston Directory 1893 has an entry for Angus C. Davies (Davies, Hpkins & Bates), 80 Summer, h. 20 Sargent
Boston Directory 1894 has an entry for Angus C. Davies (Davies, Hopkins & Bates), 80 Summer, h. 3 Fairfax
Douglass Shand-Tucci calls this house 13 Fairfax Street. The Dorchester Blue Books from the 1890s also call it number 13. Shand-Tucci: “… this mountainous house is shingle style, that distinctly American style in its large, informal, and almost rustic masses …” He also says below that the second owner was August C. Davies, but it seems to have been Angus. It is Angus who shows up in the Dorchester Blue Books.
“Built in 1888 by George Andrew, of Andrew and Sons, Boston wood engravers, later the home of August C. Davies, the well-known Boston clothier, this house, despite its rough-hewn quality, is very skillfully done. Notice, as Professor Margaret Henderson Floyd first did, how the topmost state of the turret is battered inward. This house is also the work of Whitney Lewis, who, it is clear, was as able to handle the American Shingle Style as well as the Anglo-American Queen Anne, ant to whom, it is also clear, Carruth virtually gave Fairfax Street as a commission …”
The Davies family owned the property at least through 1918 (Bromley 1918 atlas). Between 1918 and 1933, Westmoreland Street was extended westward to connect to the east-west portion of Fairfax Street, taking some of the land associated with 15 Fairfax. The property changed ownership between 1918 and 1933.
Sources
Blue Book of Dorchester for 1894. (Boston, 1893) and later Blue Books
Codman Square House Tour Booklet, 2001.
Douglass Shand-Tucci. Ashmont. An Historical Guide to Peabody Square, Carruth’s Hill, and Ashmont Hill and the Architecture of Edwin J. Lewis, Jr. and John A. Fox. (Dorchester, 1991), 40.