from the editor
DESIGN
RENOVATE
DECORATE
IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN COINCIDENCE THAT HISTORIC
New England magazine — the publication of the preservation organization based in Boston — landed on my desk just
as I was reviewing all the stories in our September/October
issue. Renovation is our theme, but it suddenly dawned on
me how many ghosts of New England’s past we had captured
on our pages. Start with Alice James, sister of superstar writer
Henry James. Her house, built in 1883 on Massachusetts’s
North Shore has become a new landmark as its owners, a
family with three young boys, filled it with their own vibrant
spirit (Page 90). Then there is the fantastical garden (Page
100) on the Newport, Rhode Island, estate built for Martha
Codman by her cousin Ogden Codman Jr., the legendary
architect and author, with his good friend novelist Edith
Wharton, of the definitive design guide, The Decoration of Houses. Moving into the 20th century,
we have modernist disciple Henry Hoover, whose many houses, including his own residence, populated the town of Lincoln, Massachusetts, where his 1948 Heck House was saved from the wrecker’s
ball (Page 106). And what, oh what, are the Brahmin ancestors haunting the kicky renovation of a
JOEL BENJAMIN
Back Bay penthouse (Page 114) thinking about their current poker-playing roommate?
Even our Kitchen and Bath stories pick up the historic thread. The flight-of-fancy addition
(Page 42) on a proud Georgian built in 1771 in Newburyport, Massachusetts, could have been
inspired by one of the sailing ships that made the town prosperous. And the beadboard simplicity
in the master bath addition (Page 50) in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, captures the essence of the 1910
summer cottage it enhances. And though we didn’t plan it this way, in light of the 10th anniversary of the attacks of 9/11, Bruce Irving, whose forthcoming New England Icons: Shaker Villages,
Saltboxes, Stone Walls, and Steeples (photographs by Greg Premru) is hot off the press (Page 122),
wrote his Icon column for this issue (Page 72) on the forts used to defend our shores — bringing
to bear the enduring heritage of the most brave souls who occupied them.
gail ravgiala, editor
CONTRIBUTORS
www.jschwartzdesign.net
617.584.1295
Back Bay | Biddeford Pool
chris vaccaro works out of his
photo studio in Pawtucket,
Rhode Island. As a photographer, he enjoys “experiencing
new environments as well as
creating an environment for the
photograph to live.” He did both
for the image in art, page 66.
judith carter is a freelance
writer who lives near the sea in
Gloucester, Massachusetts.
With a background in art
history and interior design, she
specializes in writing about art
as well as houses and gardens,
as she did for visit, page 22.
edgar allen beem took a
break from writing his next
book, Maine Art New: 1990 to
Now, to cover two Maine
projects: an addition to a 1910
cottage in Boothbay Harbor,
bath, page 50, and the campus
of Haystack Mountain School
of Crafts, places, page 58.
