141 Cambridge Street Boston MA 02114-2702
Non-Profit Organization U.S. Postage PAID Boston, Massachusetts Permit No. 58621
aC q u i s i t i o n s
The Artist’s Studio
A
rtist Gertrude Beals Bourne must have loved this picturesque studio, which her architect husband, Frank Bourne, created for her, because she painted it a number of times over many decades. The room was located on the top floor of a Queen Anne-style house at 130 Mount Vernon Street on the flat of Boston’s Beacon Hill that had been designed by Clarence S. Luce and dubbed Sunflower Castle by Oliver Wendell Holmes. The studio’s exposed beams, comfortable furnishings, and open hearth reflect the couple’s Arts and Crafts aesthetic. Gertrude moved into the house as a new bride and spent the rest of her long life there, making a commitment to the neighborhood. The Bournes were antiquarians and preservationists. In 1920, when Charles Street was being widened, Frank helped save Asher Benjamin’s Charles Street Meeting House, which stood almost across the street from Sunflower Castle. Just as Frank designed buildings in the Colonial Revival
style (one example is Boston’s Charles River Square), Gertrude preserved Colonial and Federal architectural styles in her paintings of old houses. Frank helped found the Beacon Hill Association in 1922 and spearheaded the drive for Boston to pass zoning regulations, which the city enacted in 1924. Gertrude singlehandedly organized and founded the Beacon Hill Garden Club in 1928. Her gardens at Sunflower Castle were her love and a special feature of Beacon Hill during her lifetime.
below Gertrude Beals Bourne (1868– 1962), The Artist’s Studio—Sunflower Castle, c. 1910.
—D. Roger Howlett Mr. Howlett, Senior Research Fellow at Childs Gallery, Boston, is the author of Gertrude Beals Bourne: Artist in Brahmin Boston.
The award-winning Historic New England magazine is a benefit of membership. To join, please visit HistoricNewEngland.org