Join us this holiday season on a virtual trip to the Gibson House Museum and encounter traditional living life in Boston’s affluent Back Bay area at the end of the 19th century. The house was constructed in 1859 by Boston architect Edward Clarke Cabot for Catherine Hammond Gibson, the widow of a merchant who made his fortune from the sugar trade — she was among hardly any women to own a home in this field. Most of the rooms in this carefully preserved home, still stuffed with the Gibson family’s original furniture and personal possessions, are decorated for the holidays, brimming with historical ambiance.
Location: 137 Beacon Street, Boston
Hours: Guided tours are offered Wednesday through Sunday at 1 p.m., 2 p.m. and 3 p.m.
Price: $9 adults; $6 students and seniors, $3 children under 12
Mary Prince Photography
From the 1800s the visitors’ entrance in average Back Bay row homes was around the side. But here visitors step into a grand and densely populated space. The dark furniture, black walnut bright and dim lights were designed to impress and intimidate visitors.
Mary Prince Photography
Embossed and gilded background in the entryway, called Japanese leather, imitates the costly leather wall coverings that were popular at the time.
Mary Prince Photography
At two p.m. daily, the Gibson family would gather from the first-floor dining area for their main meal of the day — a 12-course formal event.
Mary Prince Photography
The dining area has been done up for a Christmas dinner with green and red china, a decorated mantel and fruits on a table. The family china sits on display in a corner.
Soot and smoke from the shallow coal furnace and gas light have greatly subdued the first glowing gold wall coverings.
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The mantel in the dining room is lavishly decorated with fruit and evergreens. This wonderful home is just like a time capsule, remaining intact for the previous 150 decades, with lots of evidence of what life was like during the mid-1800s.
Mary Prince Photography
The dining room’s view is of a back alley that originally ran along the back of Boston’s Back Bay townhouses. Lace curtains would have been wrapped to obstruct the opinion nevertheless let in light.
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The butler’s pantry, in utilitarian oak, was utilized by servants to stage meals for demonstration at the dining area. The back door opens into the servants’ stairs, which went out of the top towards the bottom of the house. A guest would typically never see this area.
The pantry includes a dumbwaiter for lifting up food from the cellar kitchen, a speaking tube system to speak with people from the kitchen, storage cabinets, wooden counters along with a copper sink. The softness of the aluminum lessened dishwashing noises, which might have bothered the Gibsons and their guests.
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The servants’ stairs has 94 measures.
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The music room is styled after a French salon. This is the point where the family gathered for tea parties, music recitals and evening entertainment. The light color palette came around from the 1880s, when dark forests and colours went out of favor. Here is the only area in the home with a hardwood flooring; the remainder are made with pine wide planks.
The French background has a thin coating of mica to imitate silk.
Mary Prince Photography
Mary Prince Photography
In Victorian times people parted for a time period after a big dinner celebration to digest. The men would file into the library and smoke cigars, and the ladies would go to the salon to obey the kids play with the piano. The butterfly grand piano (preceding two photos) is by Boston piano firm Mason & Hamlin.
Fresh greens, big pine cones and seasonal berries adorn the mantel (previous photo). A tree set from the bay window bathes in organic light.
Mary Prince Photography
The music room opens to the hallway, with a view of the library outside. This floor was called the parlor floor; it’s a layout typical of most homes in this area at the time.
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Portraits of almost all of the Gibsons who lived in the home hang at the library — starting with Catherine Gibson, who commissioned the home; son Charles; along with his wife, Rosamond.
Rosamond’s grandfather, John Collins Warren, was a prominent surgeon who founded Massachusetts General Hospital and the first surgeon to do an operation on a patient under ether.
A portrait of Rosamond and Charles’ son, Charles, Jr., hangs above the mantel. He worked to preserve the home as a musem.
Mary Prince Photography
Men would conduct afternoon business in the library and gathered to smoke cigars after dinner in their proper attire. Casual attire was unheard of at a Back Bay parlor.
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A simple gold Christmas tree decorates a desk at the library.
Mary Prince Photography
Mary Prince Photography
The floor above the parlor floor in Back Bay homes contains the master bedroom suite. Husbands and wives maintained separate bedrooms because of propriety and the luxury of privacy. Originally a bedroom, this room has been made over to a study.
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The bedroom includes 157 matching bits of bird-eye maple, including the curtain rods. They’re all carved to resemble bamboo, at a popular type of the time called Japanesque.
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Rosamond ran the home from this area when she and Charles lived there: displaying and hiring servants, planning meals, managing the family’s correspondence and figuring out decoration approaches. Hand cranks on both sides of the bed pull wires from the walls to ring the kitchen for support.
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The master bath sits between the bedrooms and has pipes fittings from 1902. This floor of the home had cold flowing water in 1859; hot water was brought up by the servants.
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The kitchen and the laundry area are in the house’s basement. The huge coal stove, made in 1884, made this the warmest area in the home in the winter. Two call-bell systems are above the door.
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The windows look into the backyard, which was largely used as a loading dock for bringing supplies to the house.
Mary Prince Photography
A female servant came to the house one day a week to get the laundry in this room. The area is equipped with a soapstone sink, a manual washing machine using a mangle, and a pair of rollers that press water out of the clothes. A cauldron for boiling linens and making soap, and a potbellied stove for heating irons, complete this workhorse of a room.
Mary Prince Photography
The brownstone’s measures and first-story facade look similar to people of Manhattan homes constructed in this time. But, red brick was more traditionally found in Boston architecture.