No. 20298 281 Ashmont Street, photograph April 5, 2020.
Date of construction: 1893-1894
Architect: Longfellow, Alden and Harlow
In appendix to The Second Settlement, Douglass Shand-Tucci cites a mention in American Architect and Building News for March 5, 1892, that C. F. Kittredge dated has engaged Alden & Harlow.
The following is from Ashmont by Douglass Shand-Tucci.
281 Ashmont [is] the General George Drake House. Born in Boston in 1838, the son of the noted Boston historian Samuel Gardner Drake, George Drake joined the Union forces in 1861, saw action in several historic battles, including Antietam, and rose to brigadier general, cited for “faithful, efficient and meritorious service in the field through the war.” Back home, Drake became a commission merchant (George B. Drake and Company, 150 Federal Street). H and his wife, Annie, lived in the 1870s and 1880s first in the South End and then in the Hotel Victoria in Copley Square, settling finally at Ashmont, where Drake bought this house, erected by [Charles] Kittredge in 1892. Although compromised by ill-advised modernization (particularly around above the front door), the high quality of its design can still be keenly felt. Nor is it surprising, for 281 Ashmont was designed by the important New England architectural firm we have just been discussing; Longfellow, Alden and Harlow. Best known for their Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, these architects also designed several famous Boston area buildings, including the Cambridge City Hall of 1888 and several buildings at Harvard. Longfellow a highly educated designer Harvard, M.I.T., and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris), who trained as a draftsman in the office H. H. Richardson, was the firm’s principal designer. Interestingly, his partner, Alfred B. Harlow, was a resident of Milton.
owners from atlases:
1874 land belongs to Cheever Newhall
1884 land belongs to Cheever Newhall
1889 land belongs to Chas F. Kittredge
1894 house on its lot belongs to Annie C. Drake
1898 Annie C. Drake
1904 Sophia A. Marcy
1910 Sophia A. Marcy
1918 Sophia E. Marcy
1933 Sarah S. Grover
Boston Directory
1893 George B Drake agent, 95 Milk, rm 20, h. 780 Beacon
1894 George B. Drake agent, 95 Mil, rm 20, h. 281 Ashmont
Deed
August 5, 1893 from Charles F. Kittredge to Annie C. Drake, wife of George B. Drake 2147.289
with deed restrictions about the use and placement of a house, but no existing house mentioned
Sept. 10, 1902 from George B. Drake and Annie C. Drake to Sophia A. Marcy 2849.329
Census 1910
Charles D. W. Marcy, 67, publisher of a directory
Sophia H. Marcy, 63
Harriet M. Marcy, 28
Hannah Hurley, 32, servant