|
 Thanks
to the generosity
and enthusiasm of
members Linda and
Bill Wiseman, Elisabeth
Donaghy Garrett has
prepared a scholarly
paper for Gore Place
based upon her research for
our 2007 Fall Lecture. In
her paper, entitled Christopher
and Rebecca Gore’s “Farm
House” at Waltham, Ms.
Garrett continues
her exploration into
the country life
of this influencial
Boston couple. We
are pleased to include
two excerpts in this
newsletter. The full text
with accompanying illustrations
will be printed in
an illustrated pamphlet and
made available for purchase
this fall.
The real vitality of the
country life ideal lay not
in its isolation, but in its
kinetic relationship with
the nearby city. Its significance
was most appreciated through
contrast. City life was public,
inclusive, noisy, noisome,
often frenetic, mired in pomp
and luxury, wearying and sapping
of physical and mental strength.
Country life was private,
exclusive—shared with
family and a few meaningful
friends. It was quiet, sweet,
simple, and restorative to
body and soul. To many in
this first generation of American
statesmen, caught up in the
political turmoils surrounding
the design and creation of
a new nation, city represented
duty, often filled, in the
words of one, with rancourous
passions which tear every
breast. In contrast, home,
that country estate—that “quiet
situation” served as
a balm. Gore, the public servant,
maintained fashionable living
quarters in Boston, but his
thoughts often turned to his
farm in Waltham. For him it
was “the Shady Bower,
or rural seclusion.”vii
There was an architectural
conceit for this world of
rural retirement. It was the
self-sustaining Roman villa,
actually the suburban villa
on the outskirts of Rome,
as given new voice in the
sixteenth century works of
the Italian architect, Andrea
Palladio. Here, as expressed
by Palladio in 1570, a gentleman
might pass his time “watching
over and improving his property
and increasing his wealth
through his skill in farming;” and
where, with healthful outdoor
exercise “on foot or
on horseback,” the body
might “more readily
maintain its healthiness and
strength,” while the
spirit, “tired by the
aggravations of the city,” would
be “revitalized” and “soothed.” Here,
in this atmosphere of “tranquility,” one
could turn to the “study
of literature and quiet contemplation” with
those most desired—“brilliant
friends and relatives.”viii
In England first, and then
in France, where they spent
time in 1801, the Gores saw
firsthand the French skill
at the distribution of rooms
for convenience and privacy.
Robert Adam, the celebrated
British architect/designer
had taken note of French supremacy
in spatial arrangements when
he published his plans for
Derby House in 1779 and stated
that the floor plans “exhibit
an attempt to arrange the
apartments in the French style,
which…is best calculated
for the convenience and elegance
of life.”xii Another
British born and trained architect,
one who practiced in America
and was a contemporary of
the Gores, Benjamin Henry
Latrobe, likewise admired
the French contributions to
convenience and privacy, these
new highlighted concerns of
polite living. Latrobe felt
that these two amenities had
been better dealt with by
the French than the English
and he admired the way the “French
divide their houses…so
that the parts devoted to
each… [use] shall not
interfere, though they communicate
with each other.”xiii
In other words, through careful
distribution of rooms and
passageways, interiors might
be optimally planned for the
comfort and convenience of
all parties: servants and
masters, family and friends,
males and females. Much of
this was done with thoughtful
attention to circuitry. Latrobe
used axial, radial, circuit
or perimeter circulation patterns
to separate service from served,
private from public. This,
at the same time, facilitated
that highly important requisite
of polite contemporary living:
ease—ease of effort,
ease of manner. The Gores
brought back to Massachusetts
with them on their return
in 1804 a heightened regard
for this French so-called
degagement. The Gore Place
which arose between 1805 and
1806—that brick neo-Palladian
structure with a dominant
central block, and hyphen
wings leading to terminal
pavilions—is a unique
amalgam of Italian, English
and French design, with American
materials and local craftsmanship,
but its European origins were
apparent to all. To Samuel
Ripley in his 1815 “A
Topographical and Historical
Description of Waltham,” “the
seat of Mr. Gore is one of
the most elegant in this part
of the country. The house
is a spacious and noble building
of brick, after the plan of
some of the best houses in
Europe.”xiv
vii Tamara Plakins Thornton,
p. 48. See also James S. Ackerman,
The Villa (Princeton University
Press, Princeton, 1990).
viii Andrea Palladio,
Book II, in Robert
Tavernor and Richard Schofeld
translated, Andrea Palladio
The Four Books on Architecture
(MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts,
1997), p. 121.
xii Peter Thornton,
Authentic Décor; The
Domestic Interior 1620-1920
(Viking, New York, 1984),
p. 139.
xiii Michael W. Fazio
and Patrick A. Snadon,
The Domestic Architecture
of Benjamin Henry
Latrobe (The John
Hopkins University Press,
Baltimore, 2006), p. 186.
xiv Samuel Ripley, “A
Topographical and Historical
Description of Waltham, in
the County of Middlesex, January
1, 1815,” in Massachusetts
Historical Collections, series
2, vol. 3, p. 272.
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