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ARLISLE by NANCY C f ro Senior Curato s n io Collect
Reproduction wallpaper renews historic look at Hamilton House
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mily Tyson and her stepdaughter, Elise, had only once seen the century-plus-old Hamilton House with its 110 acres in South Berwick, Maine, when they learned from their friend, the author Sarah Orne Jewett, in 1898 that the property was for sale. Elise later stated in a letter that “so strong was the charm for us that nothing more was necessary, and we neither of us saw it again until we owned it.” The Tysons immediately set about renovating it for use as a summer house. They hired architect Herbert W. C. Browne, a founding partner of the Boston firm Little and Browne, to work with them on the restoration. It was probably Browne who encouraged them to reproduce the original eighteenth-century wallpaper in the center hallway. The Tysons commissioned a reproduction from the Boston-based wallpaper company Gregory and Brown. That reproduction paper has remained in place for about a decade longer than the
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Historic New England Summer 2021
