Chartered in 1899, Simmons College proclaimed a mission of educating women for independent livelihoods. Peabody and Stearns designed the original campus structure to reflect this seriousness of purpose in its Renaissance styling and classical references. It was obviously intended to be compatible with the neighboring Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (completed in 1902), as well as with the nearby Fenway residential/institutional district in its choice of style and materials. The West Wing was completed in 1909, and the East Wing in 1929, both to original designs. Simmons Graduate School of Management also occupies two William Minot family town houses (now the Mary Garland Center) that Peabody and Stearns designed at 409 and 419 Commonwealth Avenue in the Back Bay, part of an important pattern of adaptive reuse of historic architecture by area educational institutions.