Hilltop views in arch-filled Victorian
This graceful blue Victorian, on a steep hill above the bustle of Medford, has something in common with both Trinity Church in Copley Square and the former Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane. All were designed by H.H. Richardson, who spawned an architectural style named after him and never met an arch he didn't like.
The Queen Anne-style house is filled with arches, especially inside the "piazza," where the front door opens to carved wooden arches rising above a fireplace, an ornate stairway, even a closet door. The living room, where the ceiling is decorated with raised plaster garlands, can close off with pocket doors. The dining room has another fireplace and unusually wide doorways.
The owner renovated much of the house, and overhauled the kitchen to include a granite-topped island.
The kitchen, and both butler's pantries - yes, there are two, side by side - are painted lavender, which the owner matched to the lavender growing in a photo, hanging on the kitchen wall, taken in Provence.
A Jack and Jill staircase - with two sets of runners, one from the entranceway, one near the kitchen - leads to the second floor, with three bedrooms.
One of them, home of the third fireplace, is currently set up as a family room, with a television, a sofa, and exercise equipment.
The second-floor bathroom is an ornate affair, with a gilded mirror on the ceiling above the large shower and stained glass windows along one wall.
The views get better as you ascend. The Mystic Valley unfolds out the third floor windows.
Here the owner, author and professor Catherine Manegold, was inspired to write a book about John Winthrop's early settlement in Medford.
Listing agents Thea Curtin and Dana Finnegan of Hammond Residential will hold an open house today 2 to 3:30 p.m.
