Portfolio > Awards and Publications

H H Richardson. Henry Hobson Richardson. Reverend Percy Browne House. Katherine Weatherill Browne. Richard Watson Gilder. Helena DeKay Gilder. Stanford White. President Grover Cleveland. Marion MA. Tabor Academy.
“H. H. Richardson’s House for Reverend Browne, Rediscovered”
by Mark Wright
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (JSAH)
March 2009 p.75-99
2010

Abstract
"In H. H. Richardson’s House for Rev’d Browne, Rediscovered architect Mark Wright presents one of Richardson’s most enigmatic and consequential works. A reconstruction is supported with newly–identified nineteenth and early twentieth-century photographs, by archival research, and by close examination of the surviving, altered building. To fill the house, in mind’s eye, with the family for whom it was created, the author briefly explores the lives of its first owner and his neighbors. This perspective enlivens our picture of the house’s place in the physical and social landscape of a fashionable resort, and leads to a better understanding of the commission and how the design influenced the architect’s rivals and followers, and their clients. Consideration of the house in the context of some of Richardson’s better–known work of the period between 1879 and 1882 shows that this tiny commission was central to his achievement as an American artist."

Because the house is in danger of demolition by its owner Tabor Academy, the SAH has made the article open access.

link to free PDF:

https://www.sah.org/docs/default-source/preservation-advocacy/2019-percy-browne-house-jsah-article.pdf?sfvrsn=a0ce5b9b_2&fbclid=IwAR2cvYGRbE2w-Ef2g6mu9SxFKNUOFpa9zF0txuWE3GQeZQ9XnT4X7H4bDCU