The Architect's Ghost

GUY LOWELL, ONE OF THE QUINTESSENTIAL GENTLEMAN architects of the American Renaissance, is best known for his 1907 design of Boston's Museum of Fine Arts on Huntington Avenue. But the well-connected Lowell was also the designer of choice for elegant country estates around Boston and on New York's Long Island.

In a chain of events that seems guided by kismet, one such house has been lovingly restored and intelligently updated by none other than one of Guy Lowell's descendants, Rafe Lowell, who shares a practice with his wife, Priscilla, at R & P Lowell Architects in Sherborn.

Neither Rafe Lowell nor his clients, a Boston businessman and his artist wife, had any idea who had designed the gracious country estate the Lowells were hired to restore.

Set on a wooded lot by a pond in a western suburb, the house, like so many vacation cottages of its era, was neither well-built nor winterized, and time had taken its toll. The new owners hoped to recapture the structure's past in a modern year-round home.

Work began in 2000. Abigail Lowell, then 19, was helping her parents at the site when she spotted an order form on the back of a mantel that had been pulled from the wall. It listed the manufacturer, the owner, and the home's until-then-unknown architect.

It was like getting "a visitation from the grave," says Rafe Lowell. The architect found that the connection to his great-great-great-grandfather's famous uncle added another layer of responsibility. "I felt now I had two clients. My first thought was, `I hope he approves of my changes to his house.'"

Educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and at Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Guy Lowell had a successful career as a designer of classically inspired academic buildings at Harvard and Brown universities and Phillips Academy in Andover. The author of the 1902 book American Gardens, he was also a notable landscape designer, and his work on residential estates demonstrated the unity that is possible when house and grounds are planned at the same time. He was also the son-in-law of the renowned American portrait painter John Singer Sargent.

One of many retreats west of Boston where Beacon Hill families went to escape the heat of the city, the house was built in 1905 by Apthorp Gould Fuller. Despite his well-connected name, Fuller was, in fact, the inventor of an insecticide for roses. The house was designed with sleeping porches, outdoor piazzas, and comfortable spaces for reading, and it was sited on a knoll with a view down a rolling lawn to the pond; the landscape incorporated lawns for badminton and croquet.

Over the years, the house fell into disrepair. During the renovation, which was executed by the Howland Co. of Sherborn, every surface and material had to be fixed or replaced, but exterior changes were few. The Lowells added a projecting bay on the west wing to frame the primary outdoor terrace. They also built an attached two-car garage with an art studio on the second floor, which strengthens the symmetry of the house's public face. The stucco walls were restored and painted tan. Dark-green trim defines the architecture.

Once gracious and flowing, the ground floor had been awkwardly divided by previous owners, and the second floor had become a warren of small rooms.

The Lowells created four large bedrooms by knocking out walls and maximizing light and views; depressingly low ceilings were raised and coved. Muted wall colors and white-painted woodwork heighten the ambience of the New England summer light.

On the first floor, the Lowells removed walls to facilitate a view through the large, two-story foyer to the rear terrace and the rolling lawn. To the right of the main entrance are the dining room and the new kitchen, which was created by combining three rooms into a 20-foot-by-40-foot space that opens to views of the pond and woods. The floor plan casually connects the living spaces without hallways.

To the left of the entry hall is a home office that leads to the library and its original beamed ceilings and massive fireplace. A wall of French doors opens beneath a wooden pergola to a refurbished formal giardino segreto. Though little remained of the 1905 landscape, this recollection of Italy convincingly resurrects the sense of Guy Lowell's original gardens.

The modern-day Lowells, working with Sherborn-based landscape architect Tom Wirth, further reunited the house with the land in a manner reminiscent of the master. The main formal terrace acts like a plinth upon which the classical house sits; steps connect two lower terraces and the large lawn, all leading the eye to the pond. This line forms a strong axis perpendicular to the house and terraces.

Were Guy Lowell to return today, he would no doubt recognize that the owners, architects, and landscape architect all have understood his intent.

William Morgan's book, The Cape Cod Cottage, will be published next spring by Princeton Architectural Press. He can be reached at William.D.Morgan.66@Alum.Dartmouth.org.