Just a cobblestone’s throw from
much-photographed Louisburg Square, the Nichols House offers
visitors a rare peek behind the Brahmin curtain. Built in 1804,
the stately brick row house is one of the few Beacon Hill
residences designed by Charles Bulfinch, the acclaimed architect
of the Massachusetts State House, and open to public viewing.
Yankees,the original recyclers, handed
down furnishings and follies from generation to generation. The
narrow four-story Federal-style house is filled with an eclectic
mix of antiques spanning styles from the 1600’s to the late
1800’s: Flemish tapestries, ancestral portraits, Persian
carpets, European and Asian art, French horticultural prints,
lavishly-embossed wallpaper, and four-poster beds abound. A
dramatic spiral staircase unites the motley mix of it all.
Bequeathed as a museum by Rose Standish
Nichols, the last of her family to live here, the home is
enriched with works by her uncle, American’s foremost 19th
century sculptor, Augustus Saint Gaudens and other artists in
his circle. Perhaps the most exquisite piece in the mansion is
casually perched on a windowsill — a model of Uncle Augustus’
famous Diana sculpture that once stood above the old Madison
Square Garden.
A butler’s pantry off the second-story
dining room evokes the servant-enabled life of the rich and
sheltered. In this dark wood-paneled alcove, meals were sent up
from the kitchen by dumbwaiter so the help could apply the
finishing flourishes just before serving.
Empire, a couple of Victorian pieces (used
at turn of century) 2 small sculptures by well-known artist Paul
Manship, Adam and Eve, a member of the "Cornish
Colony" of artists that grew up around Saint Gaudens’
studio in Cornish, New Hampshire experience first hand
