Little & Browne

Description

The partnership of Arthur Little and Herbert W. C. Browne from the early 1890s until the 1920s attracted a circle of affluent clients in Boston, Brookline, the North Shore of Massachusetts, and in locales outside of New England, such as Washington, D.C. They designed typically elegant, neo-classical townhouses and country estates. The collection consists of materials for twenty-four of their projects. In addition to architectural drawings, the related resources include account books outlining cumulative expenditures incurred by several clients, often with contractors' names; a scrapbook of furniture designs planned for specific residences; Browne's architectural library, which testifies to probable design sources; and correspondence from both men to Ogden Codman, Jr. (See the Name index of the Codman Family Papers for locations.) Dating from the period of Little's independent practice are the plates drawn for his pioneering "Early Interiors of New England" (1877), which sparked interest in the Colonial Revival style. Boston architects Arthur Little and Herbert Browne formed a partnership in 1889 with George A. Moore. The fruits of their collaboration were a series of commissions -- largely from a wealthy elite -- for ambitious town and country houses that reflect a taste for elegant and sometimes sumptuous neo-classical designs. These are an interesting foil for the "Colonial" features characteristic of Little's independent work in the 1880s, some of which is also represented by this collection. The drawings which are described in the following inventory appear to be the only ones which survived the dissolution of the firm in 1939....

Record Contributed By

Historic New England

Record Harvested From

Digital Commonwealth