Hartwell and Richardson


Hartwell and Richardson was a Boston, Massachusetts architectural firm established in 1881, by Henry Walker Hartwell and William Cummings Richardson. The firm contributed significantly to the current building stock and architecture of the greater Boston area. Many of its buildings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

History

Hartwell was the son of Boston painter Alonzo Hartwell. He did not attend college, and apprenticed with the architects Joseph E. and Hammatt Billings -. He opened his own office in 1856, and was one of the founding members of the Boston Society of Architects. He served in Company A of the 44th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry during the American Civil War. In the late 1860s, he began a partnership with Albert E. Swasey, Jr. - Hartwell & Swasey - that lasted until 1877. He briefly paired with George Thomas Tilden, before beginning the partnership with Richardson.
Richardson, twenty years younger than Hartwell, studied architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He won the Boston Society of Architects' 1875 prize as best young architect, and worked on his own until the 1881 partnership. Richardson was the principal designer in the firm, and Hartwell took care of the engineering and oversaw construction.
The firm's clients tended to be successful businessmen, rather than Boston "society." Early on, the firm specialized in churches and municipal buildings. First Baptist Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Town Hall in Belmont, Massachusetts, both completed in the first year of the partnership, probably were Hartwell's designs. Richardson's polychromy added lightness to Christ Church in Andover, Massachusetts and the First Spiritual Temple in Boston, Massachusetts. Even in informal styles such as the Queen Anne or Shingle-Style, that allowed for enormous freedom, Richardson's designs were conservative, sometimes even symmetrical, but beautifully detailed. Of particular note is a cluster of distinguished 1880s houses in the Avon Hill neighborhood of Cambridge.
The firm's grandest surviving house is "Osgood Hill", the Moses T. Stevens estate in North Andover, Massachusetts. Here, Richardson closely followed H. H. Richardson, for both the red-sandstone, Romanesque-Revival mansion and the rustic gatehouse. The 153-acre estate is now a wedding and conference center.
Two of the firm's churches offer a direct contrast: The Broadway Winter Hill Congregational Church in Somerville, Massachusetts is an informal, Shingle-Style composition. The Central Congregational Church in Newton, Massachusetts, composed of similar elements, is a more formal, Romanesque-Revival building, that would be symmetrical, absent the adjacent tower. Each probably reflected the wishes of the client, but they demonstrate that Richardson was accomplished in a range of styles.
In 1895, with the addition of English architect James Driver, the firm became Hartwell, Richardson and Driver, and continued under that name until Driver's retirement in 1921. The name reverted to Hartwell and Richardson, even though Hartwell had died in 1919, and the firm continued until Richardson's death in 1935.
In the 20th century, public schools and the occasional commercial building comprised much of the firm's output. At least six of their high school buildings have been converted into apartments or condominiums.
Hartwell and Richardson were both Fellows of the American Institute of Architects. Driver was a member of the AIA.

Selected works

Churches