Looking Towards Dedham

The Skinner Mansion

Elaine Fazekas P’18

Before it was sold to the Ursuline Sisters in 1957, the Ursuline Convent was the home of twenty-four year old Francis Skinner, Jr., a gentleman farmer. He was the son of two prominent families, and related to some of the most well-known families in Massachusetts history (the Gardners, Peabodys, and Lowells on his mother’s side). He was very close with his aunt Isabella Stewart Gardner, a Boston socialite most remembered for her Venetian palace and art collection in Boston’s Fenway district that eventually became the Gardner Museum.

Upon inheriting his family’s fortune in 1905, Skinner hired noted architect Guy Lowell, best known as the architect for Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, to design an English country manor-style home. Word of mouth holds that Skinner built the mansion as a wedding gift for his bride, Sarah E. Carr – albeit a belated gift, since they had been married for seven years by the time it was completed. The detail around the grand foyer’s ceiling even resembled a wedding cake. The mansion was built at an estimated cost of $500,000 to $600,000, equivalent to over $13 million today. Skinner’s masterpiece for his bride held twenty rooms and three stories. The first floor was the most impressive, consisting of a reception hall (with a vaulted ceiling, inlaid marble floor, and Tiffany wall sconces), a large living room, a paneled library, a garden room with Italian terracotta tiled floor, a formal dining room, a breakfast room, and an extensive servants’ wing complete with kitchens, storage, and an elaborate series of china closets and butlers’ pantries. Outside, Skinner surrounded the mansion with extensive landscaped gardens, greenhouses, terraces, orchards, and an indoor swimming pool. Many of the outdoor features were removed when the school was constructed in the late 1950s, but some of the trees and plantings remain to this day. In keeping with his lifestyle, Mr. Skinner used the finest materials and workmanship, including carved limestone, Italian marble, Dutch Delft tile, quartered oak, carved mahogany, and other tropical woods. Francis Skinner died in 1914 and the property remained with Sarah Skinner until her death in 1956, after which it was sold to a member of the Endicott family. They owned the house and land for only nine months before selling it to the Archdiocese of Boston in 1957, who helped purchase it for the Ursuline Sisters in exchange for the deed to the Arlington Street building. This exchange enabled them to relocate Ursuline Academy from Boston to Dedham.

UNIFORM: In 1957, the Arlington Street uniform changed to a pleated plaid skirt, white shirt, green blazer and brown leather shoes. BLESSING: On November 1, 1957, the Convent house was blessed by Bishop Jeremiah F. Minahan of Norwood. He had tea at the Convent’s only table.

1954

On May 17, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that segregation of public schools is a violation of the 14th ammendment in Brown v. Board of Education.

1955

The Vietnam War begins.

1957

The purchase of the Dedham property is finalized on September 27th. The Convent house is immediately staffed with Provincialate administrative and maintenance personnel from Boston. (It was planned that the Arlington St. campus would remain operational for at least another year.) Celebration of the first Mass on a temporary alter in the new chapel takes place October 2nd. (Priests from Dedham’s Queen of Apostles Seminary serve as chaplains and help lay the temporary altar stone.)

Eventually, the mansion became known as “the convent,” serving as the Sisters’ home where they could live in community, relax, and pray after spending long days teaching. The mansion’s library was converted to their chapel where the Sisters would partake in worship and daily Mass, while the former garage/carriage house became the Provincialate, home to the Sister serving as the Ursuline Provincial.

ART AND ARCHITECTURE: Francis Skinner, Jr. was the nephew of Isabella Stewart Gardner. Guy Lowell, architect of the Boston MFA, designed the mansion.

1957

October 7th: The first Dedham Kindergarten class is held in the Convent parlor. Nine children are enrolled.

BREAKING GROUND

On July 23, 1958, the Ursuline Sisters broke ground for their new school in Dedham. Under unseasonably cool and cloudy skies, with Reverend William J. Reed SJ officiating, and with the Sisters and guests surrounding her, Mother St. Mark scooped the first ceremonial shovelful of earth.

Meanwhile, the kindergarten program was thriving in the adjacent Convent parlor. Enrollment had jumped to 30, with the children’s beloved teacher, Mother Carolyn (Sr. Ursula Binnette OSU), at the helm.