Quincy, Mass. Historical and Architectural Survey

55 Dixwell Avenue

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE
The Hospital Hill/President's Hill/Cranch Hill neighborhood of Quincy is bounded by the MBTA tracks (east), Granite Street-Quarry Street (south), Quarry Street-Common Street (west), and Common Street-Furnace Brook Parkway (north). A key feature of this elite residential area was the extensive Charles Francis Adams Estate which was divided by the 1890's into three great real estate trust controlled properties called President's Hill, President's Hill Annex and Cranch Hill. Presidents Hill took its name from the Adams family who furnished two Presidents of the United States. Cranch Hill is located on the former homestead of Richard Cranch who together with Joseph Palmer, is credited with the early industrial development of Germantown. Other features of this area are the smaller estates that lined the south side of Adams Street. the Quincy City Hospital at the top of Cranch Hill and the stone quarries lying to the east of Quarry Street. The close proximity of the Quincy Depot (which served the Old Colony Line to Boston), the City Hall, the street railway, and the city's financial center were major factors in the successful development of this area.

Herman F. McIntire, a Quincy Center realtor located in the Greenleaf Building at 1419 Hancock Street, built both 55 and 21 Dixwell Avenue. He appears to have started out living in the house at Number 55 and then moved by 1909 to Number 21. The McIntires retained ownership of Number 55 until about 1922 when Walter A. Read, chief draftsman of the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp. Ltd, and his wife, Alice G., were the new owners.

BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES
"A Brief Historical Sketch of the City of Quincy, Mass." Issued by the President's Hill, President's Hill Annex, and Cranch Hill Real Estate Trusts. c. 1903.
Asessors Records.
Robinson's Atlas of Norfolk County, Mass., 1888.
Atlas of the City of Quincy, 1897.
Atlas of the City of Quincy, 1907.
Atlas of the City of Quincy, 1923.

ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE:
The Shingle Style which followed the exhuberant Queen Anne Style was favored for sea side and suburban homes. The trend began with the grandiose shingled summer homes of McKim, Mead and White in the 1880s and continued with the fine Shingle Style houses of William Ralph Emerson in Massachusetts and John Calvin Stevens in Maine. They were characterized by quiet compact massing, enveloping roofs which were often gambreled, simple classic details and the use of weathered shingles to "wrap" the house. It Was considered an American derived architecture which was influenced by the early weathered clapboarded and shingled 17th century houses then being studied with great avidity. The continued interest in the architectural past of the East Coast led soon after to the Colonial Revival Style.

The residence at 55 Dixwell Avenue is a fine example the Shingle Style as characterized by the dominating presence of the massive two story gambreled gables which envelop the house. Other details of the period include classic elements such as the Palladian windows, the oval window with keystones and the Ionic columns supporting the balustraded wrap-around porch. All these are harbingers of the forthcoming Colonial Revival Style. With its tall chimney rising above the gambreled roofs, a picturesque ridge roof dormer and the overhang of the second floor over the ground, the house exhibits most of the elements of a late Shingle Style residence. It will be recommended that this property be included in the proposed National Register Hospital Hill/President's Hill/Cranch Hill Historic District.

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