Quincy, Mass. Historical and Architectural Survey

390 Adams Street

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE
All of Adams Street was a section of the old Boston-Plymouth Highway and a important settlement area in the early days. Along this road were the primary 1634 land grants after the Mount Wollaston area became part of Boston. These grants were given on the basis of four acres per head in the family to encourage settlement.

Stein & Applebaum, a well-known local building company, erected this large Tudor revival residence at 390 Adams Street in 1931. Working with architect J. Winthrop Pratt, Stein & Applebaum had previously built Beth Israel, 33 Grafton Street (1918) and 1627-1635 Hancock Street (1922). They probably built the $15,000 house on speculation as William J. Martin, the executive vice-president of the Granite Trust Co., was living there in 1935. The land on which 390 Adams Street is located had belonged since at least 1897 to the Adams Temple an School Fund. This Fund was established by John Adams in 1822 for the benefit of the inhabitants of the Town of Quincy and included two large tracts of Adams land known as Rock Pasture (25 acres) and Mount Ararat Pasture (54 acres) . The Fund illustrates the three century-old bond of the Adams family and Quincy.

BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES
Assessors Records.
Churchill Edwards. Historic Quincy, Massachusetts, 1957, p. 155.
H. Hobart Holly, Quincy Historical Society.
H. Hobart Holly, Quincy: 350 Years, 1974. p. 57
Quincy City Directory, 1935.

ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE:
The Tudor Revival was one of the popular eclectic revival styles of the first quarter of the 20th. century. Loosely based on a few characteristics of Elizabethan and Carolean periods (16th and early 17th century England), it has its origins in England in the 1830s and in the United States in the 1850s through the proliferation of the books by Andrew Jackson Downing (1815-1852) who thought the style appropriate for a country residence. Characteristics of the style include half timbering detailing , a multiplicity of gables, large elaborate chimneys, varied walling material, steeply pitched ridge roofs, superimposed gables, casement windows with leaded panes Tudor arches and at times, castellated parapets. It was the most picturesque style of the 20th century. The house at 390 Adams Street exhibits numerous characteristics of this picturesque style. They include two large half timbered gabled projections on the front, an irregular silhouette and an imposing castellated entrance which has a gothic arched door surrounded by cast stone trim. It is one of three fine Tudor Revival houses on Adams Street listed in the inventory. They all contribute to the streetscape's attractive character with their eclectic mix of materials and picturesque massing; it is a pleasant change from the ubiquitous "colonial" type residences in the area.

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