Joseph Thorpe House

Joseph Thorpe House

Joseph Thorpe House Peter Vanderwarker or Antonina Smith

Joseph Thorpe House

1888, Arthur Little. 168 Brattle St.

One of the first and certainly the most inventive of New England architects to reclaim colonial forms for modern architecture, Arthur Little here created a pastiche of Federal period buildings. In 1882, Little published Early New England Interiors, a selection of his drawings of details from colonial houses. More than a decade later, this large residence still betrayed that vignette attitude. Unlike other Colonial Revival designers who were by the 1890s disciplining picturesque variety, Little reveled in a complicated and quirky design. The street front is actually the rear elevation, with its projecting service wing flanked by a monumental portico. The rear entrance facade, originally overlooking a generous lawn and garden, is symmetrically organized. Today architect Graham Gund has claimed that lawn as part of the site for his center-block residence (2001), only partly visible beyond Little's building.

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