26 Weybridge Road
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<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Built :<br /></span></strong></div>
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<td width="63%" class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">c1822</span></td>
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<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Remodeled :</span></strong></div>
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<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1860s, 1920s, & 2010s</span></td>
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<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Architect (1921 Remodeling):</span></strong></div>
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<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Clarence T. McFarland</span></td>
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<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First Resident:</span></strong></div>
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<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Charles Wild</span></td>
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<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First Resident <br />as Part of Blake Park:</span></strong></div>
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<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Porter Sargent</span></td>
</tr></tbody></table><p align="center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/u88O1gQ.jpg" alt="The former Wild House, after renovations, in 1868." width="474" height="454" /></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">26 Weybridge Road, built around 1822 for Dr. Charles Wild, is the oldest house in Blake Park. Extensively remodeled in the 1860s, it was acquired by the Blake family in the 1880s and redesigned again in the 1920s as part of the Blake Park development. A third remodeling in the 2010s inlcuded extensive interior changes while restoring the exterior largely to its 1925 design.</span></p>
<hr /><p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Charles Wild (1795-1864) was born in Boston, graduated from Harvard in 1814, and was granted a medical degree in March 1818. (His dissertation was on delerium tremens.) Coming to Brookline less than a month later, he boarded with a widow, Mrs. Croft, on Washington Street. (The Croft family had owned land in this part of Brookline since 1746.)</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Around 1820, the widow gave him two acres of land on the south side of Washington Street, near the base of Aspinwall Hill. Dr. William Aspinwall, the town's principal physician, was gradually winding down his own medical practice at that time -- he died in 1823 -- and Wild soon took over as the leading physician in town.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/TVeF9oj.jpg" alt="Dr. Charles Wild" width="161" height="235" align="right" /></span><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Harriet Woods in her <em>Historical Sketches of Brookline</em>, published in 1874, presented a lengthy profile of Dr. Wild. (Pages 163-170).</span></p>
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<p align="left">Those who can remember the doctor in his prime [wrote Woods], can well recall his tall, well-formed figure, his firm tread, his deep voice which seemed to come from cavernous depths, and eyes which seemed to look from behind his spectacles into and through one.</p>
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<p align="left">Woods described the doctor's typical way of announcing his arrival to see a patient:</p>
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<p align="left">He had a breezy way of entering a house, stamping off the snow or dust with enough noise for three men, throwing off his overcoat, untying a huge muffler that he wore around his neck, and letting down his black leather pouch with emphasis. There was an indescribable noise he made sometimes with that deep gruff voice of his which cannot be represented in type.</p>
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<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dr. Wild, widely respected in town for his knowledge, abilities, and advice, was skilled in the mixing and administering of potions, in bloodletting, and in other techniques practiced by the physicians of his day. In 1839, he became interested in the emerging ideas of homeopathy. The second meeting of New England physicians interested in this new kind of practice took place at the house on Washington Street in 1841. It led to the formation of the Massachusetts Homeopathic Fraternity.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dr. Wild was active in town affairs, serving at various times on the School Committee and as a justice of the peace, among other responsibilities. He was also an active member of the Rev. John Pierce's Unitarian church, where he sang in the choir and played the flute in the days before the church had an organ.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Charles Wild and his wife Mary (1799-1883) had eight children. Their second son, Edward Augustus Wild (1825-1891) followed in his father's footsteps, graduating from Harvard in 1844 and earning a medical degree in 1846. He practiced medicine in Brookline until 1855, when he went to Turkey (with his new wife) and served as a medical officer with the Turkish Army during the Crimean War.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Returning to Brookline after the war, he resumed his medical practice until the outbreak of the Civil War when he was commissioned captain of a company of troops comprised principally of men from Brookline and Jamaica Plain. Wild was wounded at the Battle of Seven Pines in Virginia and, after returning to action as a colonel, was wounded again at the Battle of South Mountain, during which his left arm had to be amputated. (He supposedly supervised the amputation himself.)</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/3oeciBO.jpg" alt="Edward Augustus Wild" width="189" height="309" align="right" />An ardent abolitionist, Edward Wild became involved, after his recovery, in the formation of regiments of African-American troops for the Union Army. He advised Col. Robert Gould Shaw on the selection of officers as Shaw was forming the 54th Massachusetts (celebrated in the movie <em>Glory</em> and the St. Gaudens sculpture on the Boston Common opposite the State House.) In 1863, Wild was appointed a brigadier general and sent to North Carolina to recruit troops from among freed slaves in areas the Union Army had occupied. He continued to recruit and to lead these troops until the end of the war.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(An excellent account of Wild's efforts, "<a href="http://www.rootsweb.com/~ncusct/brigade1.htm">Raising the African Brigade: Early Black Recruitment in Civil War North Carolina</a>," from the <em>North Carolina Historical Review</em>, has been made available on the Web.)</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Unable to practice medicine after the war because of his injuries, Wild becoming involved in mining ventures in the West and eventually in South America. He died in Columbia in 1891 and is buried in the city of Medellin in that country.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Wild house was sold in 1864 to William Lincoln and sold again in 1868 to Stephen Dexter Bennett who made alterations to both the house and the stable. (The picture at the top of this page shows the house after the 1868 alterations. There are no pictures showing the house as it had looked before.)</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Stephen Bennett (1838-1906) was a merchant. He had been in the rubber business in New York early in his career and maintained an office in Boston although, according to his obituary in the <em>Brookline Chronicle</em>, he had not been active in business for some 30 years at the time of his death. He and his wife Helen (1841-1927) moved to Brookline from Cambridge. They had four children. Their oldest son Henry (born 1862), offered the following description [excerpted] of the family's time in the Washington Street house in a reminiscence in the <em>Brookline Chronicle</em> (May 8, 1924).</span></p>
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<p align="left">In April, 1868, our family moved to Brookline from Cambridge, my father having bought about four-and-one-half acres of land known as the Dr. Wilde [sic] place, well laid out by both Dr. Wilde and Mr. William Lincoln, a later owner. After some alterations to the house and stable, we settled down and lived there until 1882. A more ideal place on which to bring up a family of three children, later four, would be hard to find. A long cobble-guttered driveway, with hedge on each side about six feet high, led to the house, with a turnaround in front and an avenue at the side leading to the stable and sheds in the rear of the house...The whole place was well laid out with fruit trees and flower beds by two former owners and kept up by my parents...Washington Street was then the Old Brighton Road, with its traffic of animals to market on Wednesdays and Saturdays and the racing by our place in sleighing time. Our lawn was a fine place on which to coast and also to see the sleighing, which had two lines on either side and a racing space in the middle. Many were the accidents there in the season. In '82 my father sold our beautiful place to Mr. Arthur Blake.</p>
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<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The first occupants of this house after its acquisition by the Blakes were William and Jane D. Whitman and their family. William Whitman (1842-1928) was a leading textile manufacturer. He was the head of Arlington Mills and other companies and for many years was president of the National Association of Wool Manufacturers. He wrote frequently on economic topics and was a prominent voice in debates over tariffs for the wool industry.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Whitman was born in Nova Scotia and came to Boston at the age of 14. He worked for a dry goods commission house for 11 years, according to his obituary in the <em>New York Times</em> (8/21/1928), "showing such aptitude that he attracted the attention of woolen manufacturers." At the age of 25, he was named treasurer of Arlington Woolen Mills (later Arlington Mills) in Lawrence. He later became president of this and other textile firms and of William Whitman Co. Inc., a Boston-based dry goods firm.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">William Whitman and his wife Jane (1842-1929) had a large family. One of their sons, Malcom D. Whitman (1877-1932) later became a tennis champion. He beat Harvard schoolmate Dwight Davis (of Davis Cup fame) for his first of three straight U.S. National Championships (now the U.S. Open) in 1898. Two years later, he teamed with Davis and a third Harvard player to win the first Davis Cup competition for the U.S. over Great Britain in 1900.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Whitmans were listed here in various Brookline directories from 1883 until 1894 when they moved to Goddard Avenue.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Following the Whitmans here were Henry A. Young and his family. Young (born c1838) was a Boston bookseller, but was listed alternatively as a merchant and an "estate trustee" in various directories during the time he lived in the old Wild house. His wife Sarah had apparently died before the family moved to Brookline, but three grown children, daughters Agnes and Elsie (or Essie) and son William, lived with him for at least part of the time he was here. The Young family was listed in this house from 1894 to 1902.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Major changes were made by the Blake family to the property in the years that the Whitmans and Youngs were its occupants. First, the portion of the property farthest from Washington Street (approximately between today's Stanton and Somerset Roads) was broken off into separate lots in the 1880s.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">More significantly, a new road across the property, leading from Washington Street to Gorham Avenue, was cut through as far as Cypress Place and maintained as a private road known as Greenough Street. (See the 1895 plan by Ernest Bowditch, from the files of the Olmsted Brothers firm, below.) In 1899, the road was taken over by the town and extended to Gorham Avenue.</span></p>
<p align="center"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/bg3BRgg.jpg" alt="Land in Brookline, Mass, Formerly Bennett Estate" width="437" height="475" border="0" /><br /><em><span style="font-size:small;">Courtesy of the National Park Service, Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site<br /></span></em><span style="font-size:small;">(Click on image for a larger version)</span></span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some time after the private road was built, the portion of the property across the new street from the house was broken off and divided into separate lots. The house itself, which was first listed with a numbered address (446 Washington Street) in 1897, later had a separate entranceway added from Greenough. It was briefly listed as 9 Greenough Street during part of the Youngs' occupancy, before reverting to the Washington Street address.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The house and the stable underwent some renovations in 1904, after the departure of the Youngs. (They moved to 35 Gardner Road.) A permit was issued in August 1904 for a $1,500 project to change something. (The word after "change" on the permit may be "driveway," but it is difficult to read.) Additional buildings permits were issued in September and October. Those permits are recorded in town records, but the permits themselves, with any details of the work, have apparently been lost.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The architect for one of the stable permits is listed in town records as Frederick S.W. Richardson. This could be a typographical error; he might actually have been Frederick L.W. Richardson, Frances Blake's son-in-law and the youngest son of H.H. Richardson. No architect is listed for the work on the house itself.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The builder on all of the 1904 permits was Burton W. Neal. A prominent Brookline builder and businessman, Neal did work for the Blakes on several of the older buildings that were later incorporated into Blake Park, including <a href="http://blakepark.muddyriver.us/12lowell.html">12-14 Lowell Road</a>, <a href="http://blakepark.muddyriver.us/128gardner.html">128 Gardner Road</a>, <a href="http://blakepark.muddyriver.us/53greenough.html">53 Greenough Street</a> and <a href="http://blakepark.muddyriver.us/55greenough.html">55-57 Greenough Street</a>. He also built <a href="http://blakepark.muddyriver.us/150gardner.html">150 Gardner Road</a> for the Inter-City Trust in 1922 and did additional renovations on 26 Weybridge Road for its new owner in 1929.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The occupants of the house changed frequently between 1904, when the renovations were done, and 1916, when the property came under the ownership the P.H. Park Trust as part of the Blake Park development. (Sources for those years include both the official Street List and the Brookline directory published by the W.A. Greenough Co.)</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">William Wyndham, the British consul in Boston, lived here in 1906 and 1907, according to the Greenough directory. (The 1905 edition was not available.) The Street List, however, showed the residents as two coachmen: James Corbett (born c1879) in 1905 and 1906; and Thomas Ryan (born c1877) in 1907. (One possibility is that Wyndham lived in the house itself, and the coachmen in the carriage house.)</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There was no one listed again in 1908 and 1909. The 1910 Street List showed Fisher Ames Jr. (born 1869), a lawyer and writer, while the Greenough directory for that year listed him and his father, former Boston city solicitor Fisher Ames Sr. (1838-1919). Abbie F. Ames, Fisher Ames Sr.'s stepmother, was listed (without the two Fishers) in 1911.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The last residents of this house (1911 to 1916) before it was sold to the P.H. Park Trust were Mary Izod Weld and her brother-in-law Richard Poe-Palmer. Weld and Poe-Palmer were both natives of Ireland who came to the U.S. in 1886 or 1887.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No occupation was given for Weld in the Greenough directory (she wasn't listed at all in the Street List), but she was shown as proprietor of a sanitarium before and after she lived here (in both the 1910 and 1920 U.S. Census; the 1900 Census had listed her as a church missionary.) In 1910, she was at 50 Cypress Place, along with three sanitarium servants, one of whom was a nurse, and several boarders. In 1920, she was at 316 Harvard Street with three nurses, four patients, and a housekeeper.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Richard Poe-Palmer (born c1847) was listed with Weld before, during, and after she was in the old Wild house. His wife, Weld's sister, was listed with them in 1910 but not after that. Poe-Palmer was shown as an inspector in the Street List, but as a collector in the Greenough directory. (The 1910 Census listed him as a collector for the telephone company; no occupation was given in 1920.)</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the fall of 1916, the former Wild property was acquired by the P.H. Park Trust from the trustees of Arthur Blake's estate for inclusion in the proposed Blake Park development.</span><br /><br /><br /></p>
<p align="center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/atQ5MLg.jpg" alt="26 Weyrbidge Rd. (1921 ad)" width="643" height="550" /></p>
<p align="left"><span style="color:#993333;font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color:#000000;">The old Wild house, like the rest of the Blake property acquired by the P.H. Park Trust in 1916, remained unchanged (and apparently unused) when the Blake Park project came to a halt after the death of the Trust's founder Parvin Harbaugh. It was then sold, with the rest of the property, to the new developer, the Inter-City Trust, in 1919.</span></span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Two years later, Inter-City's architect, Clarence McFarland, undertook the first major redesign of the house in more than 50 years. The August 1921 building permit included a brief description of the changes: "Take off ell on right rear corner filling in cellar of sand. Take off roof of main house & replace with flat roof & general alterations."</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/6vX7He6.jpg" alt="26 Weybridge Rd. (1919 map excerpt)" width="182" height="124" align="right" /></span><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The ell that was removed is visible in the 1919 map at right. McFarland's design, much changed from the 1868 design, can be seen more fully in the the illustration at the top of this page, taken from in an Inter-City ad for Blake Park that appeared in the <em>Brookline Chronicle</em> on November 19, 1921.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The building permit put the cost of the alterations at $2,500. A separate permit (November 1921) called for two eight-foot-by-eight-foot doors to be cut through the outside wall of the stable at a cost of $200. The November ad in the <em>Chronicle</em> said the house would be completed in about two months, but Inter-City's troubles put a halt to the work before it was completed. (Whether this was the result of the Trust's growing financial problems or part of the cause -- along with other promised but unfinished development -- is unclear.)</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In any case, work on the house was stopped and it remained unfinished and unoccupied until the property, along with the rest of Blake Park, was taken over by Inter Urban Estates, the new corporation formed to protect the interest of Inter-City's investors. The renovations were then completed by a new developer, Benjamin F. Teel, in 1925. An April 9, 1925 permit listed a cost of $3,000 to complete the work begun by Inter-City in 1921. A separate permit a month later detailed plumbing work to be done -- at a cost of $2,000 -- including a kitchen sink on the first floor, a drain and wash trays in the basement, and "2 baths, 3 WC, 3 lav., 2 showers" on the second floor.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The new owner after the renovations were completed -- and the first occupant of the house in nearly a decade -- was publisher, editor, and writer Porter Sargent. Porter Edward Sargent (1872-1951) was born in Brooklyn and came to Massachusetts to attend Harvard in 1893. He graduated in 1896 and continued with post-graduate work in neurology while teaching science at the Browne and Nichols School in Cambridge until 1904. For the next 10 years, he ran Sargent's Travel School for Boys, taking five separate trips around the world with the sons of wealthy Boston families as his students. It was, according to a 1949 profile of Sargent in the <em>Journal of Higher Education</em>, "'the grand tour' so inherently a part of young Bostonian Brahmins' education."</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">World War I ended the travel school, and in 1914 Sargent published the first edition of <em>The Handbook of Private Schools</em>, an annual guide that he continued to produce until the end of his life (and that is still published each year by the Porter Sargent Publishing Company.) Sargent's annual prefaces to the handbook, sometimes also produced as separate publications, and other writings earned him a reputation as a fierce critic of American education. A 1947 review of one of these writings, in the <em>New England Quarterly</em>, offered high praise for his views and his willingness to express them.</span></p>
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<p align="left">What Porter Sargent says here and in his various books is important [wrote the reviewer], but not as important as what he is. He is an independent and intelligent dissenter, a type once thought to be rather characteristic of New England and of which we were justly proud. It is our misfortune and the country's that this type is now rare....[Sargent] keeps his thinking open at both ends, knowing the tendency of thought to stagnate and become <em>ideé fixe</em>. He is one of our best provokers of thought, and by taking thought the human venture may still have a future.</p>
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<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sargent was first listed at the old Wild House in the 1926 Street List. Sargent's sons Upham (1913?-1934) and Porter (1915-1975) lived with him, though they were too young to be listed in the Street List at that time. Sargent's wife Margaret had died in 1920. A housekeeper and governess were also listed in 1926, and various housekeepers, governesses, maids, and secretaries (one or two at a time) were listed with the family until the mid-1930s.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The 1930 U.S. Census listed the residents as: Porter E. Sargent, 57, publisher (books), born New York; Upham Sargent, 17; Porter Sargent, 15; Bertha Johnson, 24, housekeeper, born Vermont; and Beatrice Bannister, 23, secretary, born Vermont. The house was valued at $40,000.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The property, as acquired by Sargent, was further reduced from what it had been a decade earlier. (It was still quite large compared to the typical Blake Park property.) Three separate lots were taken out of it along the Greenough Street side (the sites of 3, 9, and 15 Greenough Street, built in 1925 and 1926), and the Washington Street frontage was taken as a lot for 454 Washington Street (built in 1929.)</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The address of Sargent's house was shown as 26 Blake Road East (the original name for Weybridge Road) in the 1926 Street List. It was changed to 26 Weybridge Road beginning with the 1927 Street List. (This was the first year other houses, built as part of the revived Blake Park development, were shown on Weybridge, the former main entrance to the Blake estate from Washington Street. See <a href="http://blakepark.muddyriver.us/streets.html">The Streets of Blake Park</a> for more on the evolution of this and other streets in the development.)</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A permit to add a one-story conservatory to the house was granted in 1929. The work, at a cost of $800, was done by Burton W. Neal, who had performed the 1904 renovations on the house for the Blake family (as well as other work for the Blakes.)</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Porter Sargent's older son Upham was first listed in the Street List, as a student, in 1933 at the age of 20. He disappeared while on a solo kayak trip in the wilds of northern Canada, near Hudson Bay, in 1934. He was last seen by native Americans in early September and his paddle and parts of his kayak were found later. He was presumed dead.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Upham's younger brother Porter was first listed in the Street List in 1936 when he was 20. He had no occupation listed at first, but he was later listed as a salesman, a manager, a publisher, and a clerk.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Porter Sargent used his Brookline house as an office as well as a home. "In Sargent's early nineteenth-century Brookline house, on a knoll surrounded by terraced gardens, his light can be seen burning until 2 a.m.," wrote a biographer in a 1941 profile in <em>Current Biography</em>. "He and his secretary start editing Private Schools in January and it usually comes out and is sent to reviewers in May ...."</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A 1949 profile in the <em>Journal of Higher Education</em>, offered this description of Sargent's endeavors in his Blake Park home:</span></p>
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<p align="left">Today at seventy-seven, when most teachers have long since fallen back on the solace of inadequate annuities, the subtle and constant reassurance of their wives, and the somnolent armchair in thoroughly self-appreciative retrospect before the comforting open fire, this man works from two in the afternoon until early in the morning seven days a week and thinks he is having the time of his life. Work and play are interwoven without a break except when Jane Sargent, his very competent New England housekeeper, insists that he eat, or during the few minutes a day he spends in his beloved Brookline garden. He accomplishes an unusual amount of work, and saves the time usually spent going to and from the office, by having two or more house secretaries constantly available. Once a week he dons his favorite bow tie and makes a journey to the Beacon Street, Boston, office where the <em>Private School Handbook</em>, which sustains his critical ventures, is produced by a competent staff under the direction of his son, Porter. On Saturday nights a group of Harvard graduate students may usually be found around his generous table and, later, the library fireplace, to discuss until early morning any problem that may come up.</p>
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<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Porter Sargent died in 1951. The old Wild house continued to be owned by members of the Sargent family until 2015.</span></p>
1822
35 Weybridge Road
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<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Year Built:<br />Permit Date:</span></strong></div>
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<td width="69%" class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1927<br />10/27/1927</span></td>
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<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Architect:</span></strong></div>
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<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dix Lumber Co.</span></td>
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<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Builder:</span></strong></div>
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<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Daniel F. Hefferman</span></td>
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<div align="right"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cost to Build:</span></div>
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<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">$13,000</span></td>
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<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Owner <br />(On Permit Date):</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Daniel F. Hefferman, Somerville</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First Residents:</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Batholomew & Honora Grady</span></td>
</tr></tbody></table><p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3</span><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">5 Weybridge Road was one of two houses on this street built by Daniel Heffernan and based on a design attributed to the Dix Lumber Company. The first residents, Bart and Nora Grady, were listed here for just one year (1928), but were the original owners and second residents of the later Heffernan/Dix Lumber house at 15 Weybridge Road. (See <a href="http://blakepark.muddyriver.us/15weybridgerd.html">15 Weybridge Road</a> for more on the Gradys.)</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The next residents of this house, first listed in 1929, were Horace A. and Bessie M. Edgecomb. Horace Albert Edgecomb (born 1873 in Rhode Island) was a court stenographer. He was listed at this address until 1934 and his wife Bessie (born c1874) until 1938.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Following the Edgecombs here were Harold J. and Mary Louise FIeld who moved here from 7 Claflin Path. Harold Field (1897-1970), the son of Irish immigrants, was an attorney. He and his wife Mary (born c1902) were listed at this address from 1939 to 1944.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The last residents of 35 Weybridge Road during the period covered by this survey were Rhoda (born c1911) and Saul Butters (1906-1993) who moved here from Boston. Their son Nelson (1937-1995) was valedictorian of his class at Boston University and earned a doctorate at Clark University. He later became a professor of psychiatry at the University of California at San Diego and an expert on memory and memory disorders.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Butters family was listed at this address from 1945 until the late 1960s.</span></p>
1927
31 Weybridge Road
<table width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1" border="1"><tbody><tr valign="top"><td class="label" width="31%">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Year Built:<br />Permit Date:</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1" width="69%"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1925<br />5/27/1925</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Architect:</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">L.G. Brackett & Co.<br />See the research note below</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Builder:</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fred S. Wells</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cost to Build:</span></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">$14,000</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Owner <br />(On Permit Date):</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Maurice Dunlavy</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First Residents:</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Edmund H. & Isabelle C. Brown</span></td>
</tr></tbody></table><p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The first house built on Weybridge Road as part of the Blake Park development, this house is one of two Blake Park houses designed by Leroy G. Brackett. The other, 33 Somerset Road, is attributed to him and this one to his firm, the L.G. Brackett Co. See the research note below for more on Brackett.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Maurice Dunlavy, who built 25 Blake Park houses in conjunction with architect Royal Barry Wills, was listed as the owner on the building permit for this house, although he was not listed as the builder.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The first residents of this house were Edmund and Isabelle Brown. Edmund Holmes Brown (1883-1979) was a musician in a theater orchestra. His wife Isabella (born c1880) had no occupation listed in the Street List, but was shown as proprietor of a tea room in the 1930 U.S. Census. The Browns had been married shortly before moving to this house. It was the second marriage for Isabella.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Browns were listed at this address from 1927 to 1930. Daniel M. Webster, an accountant, was listed with them the first two years. Osborne H. Snow, Isabella Brown's son from her first marriage, was listed with them in 1929 and 1930. He worked in a wholesale hardware business.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The 1930 U.S. Census listed the residents as: Edmund H. Brown, 46, musician, (theater orchestra); Isabelle Brown, 50 (wife), proprietor (tea room); and Osborne H. Snow, 29 (step-son), cost man (wholesale hardware). The house was valued at $28,000.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The next residents were Henry F. (Harry) and Madelaine Hamilton. Harry Hamilton was a dentist, born in Maine c1856. Madelaine (1887-1970) was his second wife. They had a son, Benjamin Fisher Hamilton (1917-2004), who attended the Dexter School and Phillips Exeter Academy and earned a degree in industrial engineering at Yale. The Hamiltons were listed at this address from 1931 to 1933.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Following the Hamiltons here were Howard C. and Alice H. Rand. Howard Cheever Rand (born 1875 in New Hampshire) was a banker/investment broker. (In the 1944 Street List, when the Rands lived on Tappan Street, he was shown as a partner with Proctor & Cook.) He and his wife Alice (born in Maine c1880) were listed at this address from 1934 to 1937.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The next residents were Harold K. and Evelyn F. Gross who moved here from Newton. Harold K. Gross (1899-1992) was an executive at Filene's department store. He graduated from Harvard and from the Harvard Business School and joined Filene's in 1922 as to assistant to Louis Kirstein, the store's general manager. Gross was later promoted to promoted to merchandise manager for all ready-to-wear clothes for women, according to his obituary in the <em>Boston Globe</em>. He </span><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">introduced the French shops at Filene's and introduced the designs of Christian Dior, Yves St. Laurent, Emilio Pucci and others to the store. After retiring from Filene's in 1957, Gross was a principal of the Botany Corp. of New York, a consulting and investment firm.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Harry Gross and his wife Evelyn (1908-2004) were listed at this address from 1938 until the late 1960s.<br /></span></p>
<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="3"><tbody><tr><td><strong>A Little Note About Missteps </strong><br /><strong>In the Thickets of Historical Research</strong>
<p>An earlier list of the houses of Blake Park and their architects, compiled for the Brookline preservation office from index card files in the building department, attributed the design of 33 Someret Road to Lucy Brackett and of 31 Weybridge Road to the L.G. Brackett Co., which I assumed to be the same.</p>
<p>This seemed unusual for the 1920s when there were few women practicing architecture. But when I visited the Building Department, there it was: Lucy Brackett typed on the index card and Lucy G. Brackett written by hand on the building permit.</p>
<p>Additional information about Lucy Brackett remained elusive, however, and it remained one of the more intriguing mysteries of Blake Park.</p>
<p>I found L.G. Brackett & Co. listed in Boston directories in the 1930s and 1940s, but no information about any individual. I also found an L.G. Brackett Co. in Winchester today, a provider of building and land surveying services, but the current owners had no connection to or knowledge of the original L.G. Brackett.</p>
<p>Then, after several fruitless attempts to find any trace of Lucy Brackett, I saw a listing for L.G. Brackett & Co. at 88 Tremont Street in a 1947 Boston directory, later than any I had seen before. It also indicated that L.G. Brackett lived in Lexington. That led me to a 1942 Lexington directory that listed a Leroy G. Brackett, civil engineer.</p>
<p>Hmmm. Could Lucy have actually been Leroy, misread on the handwritten building permit when the information was transferred to the typewritten index card? And misread again by me, seeing what I expected to see?</p>
<p>I went back for another look and, sure enough, the name on the permit was Leroy. The loop on the e was tight enough so that it might have been mistaken, in combination with the r, for a u. And maybe a quick glance would have seen the o as a c. But Lucywas definitely Leroy.</p>
<p>(The signature below is not from the building permit, but from Leroy Brackett's World War I draft registration card [obtained via Ancestry.com]. You can see how the same mistake could have been made reading the signature here.)</p>
<center>
<p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/hc3jYdE.gif" alt="Brackett signature" /></p>
</center>
<p>So. Mystery solved. Intrigue over. The only woman to design houses in Blake Park was not a woman after all.</p>
<p>- Ken Liss</p>
</td>
</tr></tbody></table><p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></p>
1925
25 Weybridge Road
<table width="100%" border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr valign="top"><td width="31%" class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Year Built:<br />Permit Date:</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td width="69%" class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1929<br />5/6/1929</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Architect:</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">H.W. Morton</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Builder:</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Whitehouse & Freeman</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cost to Build:</span></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">$12,000</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Owner <br />(On Permit Date):</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Josephine Flanders, 49 Longwood Avenue</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First Residents:</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Josephine M. Flanders</span></td>
</tr></tbody></table><p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">25 Weybridge Road was the home at first of Josephine Flanders, her sons Lewis and Talbot, and Lewis's wife Lela. The family moved here from 49 Longwood Avenue.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Josephine Flanders (born 1856) was the widow of Albert Flanders, president of Lewis Flanders & Co., a trucking company established by his father in the 1850s (at a time when truckers, of course, moved goods by horse and wagon). Albert Flanders died in 1929, shortly before the family moved to Weybridge Road.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Josephine and Albert's son Lewis (born c1888) took over from his father as president of the trucking business. Lela Flanders (born 1897 in Canada), to whom he was married in 1929, was Lewis' second wife. He was married previously in 1912 to a wealthy widow, 12 years his senior, who lived near the Flanders family on Longwood Avenue.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lewis Flanders' younger brother Talbot (1890-1973) was listed as a telephone engineer in the Street List and the 1930 U.S. Census. Earlier, he had been a mechanical engineer with the Edison Electric Company in Boston.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The 1930 U.S. Census listed the residents as: Josephine M. Flanders, 73; Lewis Flanders, 42, president (transportation company); Lela J. Flanders, 31 (daughter-in-law), born Canada; Talbot Flanders, 40, engineer (telephone); and Dora Mattocks, 44, servant, born Canada.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Flanders family was listed at 25 Weybridge Road from 1930 to 1935.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The next residents were Frank C. and Katherine G. Fellows, along with Phyllis Glenister and Harrison L. Benson, all of whom moved here from another Blake Park house at <a href="http://blakepark.muddyriver.us/78stanton.html">78 Stanton Road</a>. Frank Fellows (born 1874) was the owner of a ladder company. His wife Katherine was born in England c1882 and came to the U.S. in 1890. Harrison Benson was born in Canada c1897 and came to the U.S. in 1902. He was listed as an attendant at 78 Stanton and as a salesman at this address. Phyllis Glenister (born c1913) was listed as a secretary.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is unclear what the relationship was between the Fellows and Benson and Glenister. Katherine Fellows was listed at this address from 1936 to 1941. Frank Fellows and Benson were listed in 1936 and 1937 only. Phyllis Glenister was listed from 1936 to 1938 and again, as Phyllis G. Stewart, in 1941 and (without Katherine Fellows) in 1942. The only constant for the years this family was here (1936-1942) was the same Irish maid, Margaret Flynn. My best guess is that Katherine G. Fellows and Phyllis G. Stewart were sisters.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No one was listed at this address in 1943. The next residents were Vincent, Gwendolyn and Eric Rice. Vincent Donald Rice (incorrectly listed as Donald V. Rice in the Street List) was born in the Britsh West Indies in 1874 and came to the U.S. in 1905. He was a retired electric company clerk at the time he moved here from Roslindale. His son Eric (1909-1981), who moved with him from Roslindale, worked in a bank. He was listed here in 1944 and 1945. Gwendolyn Rice (born c1877), who lived in Attleboro before moving here, may have been Vincent Rice's sister. She was a nurse.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Members of the Rice family were listed at this address from 1944 until the early 1950s.</span></p>
1929
15 Weybridge Road
<table width="100%" border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr valign="top"><td width="31%" class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Year Built:<br />Permit Date:</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td width="69%" class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1930<br />4/10/1930</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Architect:</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dix Lumber Company</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Builder:</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">D.F. Heffernan</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cost to Build:</span></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">$14,000</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Owner <br />(On Permit Date):</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">B.E. Grady, 1662 Commonwealth Ave</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First Residents:</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mary Gaffney</span></td>
</tr></tbody></table><p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">15 Weybridge Road was one of two houses on this street built by Daniel Heffernan and based on a design attributed to the Dix Lumber Company. The first residents listed in the Street List were Mary Gaffney, previously in Milton, and her daughter Katherine, a teacher, previously in New York. They were listed here in 1931 and 1932.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Gaffneys may have been renting from Bartholomew Grady who was listed as the owner of the house on the building permit but was not listed as living at the house until 1933. Grady had been listed at the other Heffernan/Dix Lumber house, 35 Weybridge Road, in 1928, but was shown as living on Commonwealth Avenue on the 1930 permit.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bart Grady, the son of Irish immigrants, was born c1873. He was a musician, listed in a 1903 Somerville directory as a pianist at Keith's Theater, and later became a theater manager. He and his wife Honora, or Nora (born c1882 in Vermont to Irish immigrants) had several children. Nora may have died before the family moved here. She was listed at 35 Weybridge Road in 1928, but only Bart and the two youngest children, Lawrence and Ann, were listed at this address.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lawrence Grady (1908-1985) was an executive in private industry for many years before joing the Small Business Administration in the 1960s. He was one of the founders, at the SBA, of the Service Core of Retired Executives. Ann L. Grady (1910-2005), later Ann Fleming, graduated from Emmanuel College in 1931. She worked at the Salada Tea Company and taught at Cardinal Cushing Central High School. She was also active in the Emmanuel College Alumni Association. (Her older sister Mary (1906?-2001), who entered the Sisters of Notre Dame in 1928 and became Sister Ann Bartholomew Grady , was president of Emmanuel from 1960 to 1969.)</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Grady family was listed at this address from 1933 to 1937.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The next residents were Anna J. Connor and her three grown children, Howard, Sadie Eleanor, and Harold, who moved here from Boston. The Connors were all born in England and came to the U.S. in 1905. Anna Connor (born c1868) and her late husband also had three older children.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Howard C. Connor (1895-1963) was listed as an accountant in the 1920 and the 1930 U.S. Census. He was shown as an attorney in the Brookline Street List. Sadie Eleanor Connor (1900-1966) was listed as a stenographer. Harold E. Connor (1916-1992) was listed as a salesman until 1943 when he entered the U.S. Navy.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Members of the Connor family were listed at this address from 1939 until the late 1960s.</span></p>
1930
7 Weybridge Road
<table width="100%" border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr valign="top"><td width="31%" class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Year Built:<br />Permit Date:</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td width="69%" class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1933<br />12/16/1933</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Architect:</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Harry M. Ramsey</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Builder:</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">N/A</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cost to Build:</span></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">$9,000</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Owner <br />(On Permit Date):</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Homer T. Brown Trust, 1300 Beacon Street</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First Residents:</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">William J. & Margaret M. Clark</span></td>
</tr></tbody></table><p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This house near the former main entrance to the Blake Estate from Washington Street was the last one built on Weybridge Road. The architect, Harry Ramsey, also designed four other houses in Blake Park, two on Blake Road and one each on Stanton and Somerset.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">7 Weybridge Road was the home initially of William and Margaret Clark and Margaret's mother and brother Margaret M. and John H. Ryan. </span><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">William Clark (born c1904 in Illinois) owned a moving company. By 1944, when he was no longer listed at this address (having died or otherwise moved on), his wife Margaret (1907-1994?) was the owner of the company.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Margaret Mary Ryan (born c1876) was the daughter of Irish immigrants. Her son John Henry Ryan (1898-1988) was a clerk at the Holtzer Cabot Electric Company. </span><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Members</span><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> of the family were listed at this address from 1935 until the early 1970s.</span></p>
1933
37 Weybridge Lane
<table width="100%" border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr valign="top"><td width="31%" class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Year Built:<br />Permit Date:</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td width="69%" class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1930<br />9/13/1930</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Architect:</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Royal Barry Wills</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Builder:</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Maurice Dunlavy</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cost to Build:</span></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">$7,500</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Owner <br />(On Permit Date):</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Maurice Dunlavy</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First Residents:</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Maurice A. Dunlavy and Mary A. Dunlavy</span></td>
</tr></tbody></table><p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Builder Maurice Dunlavy and architect Royal Barry Wills had already worked together on more than a dozen Blake Park houses by the time they began construction of this award-winning house for Dunlavy and his wife Mary in the fall of 1930.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The house was about halfway up Gardner Path, the stairway leading up Aspinwall Hill from Washington Street to Hancock Road. It carried the address 12 Gardner Path until 1933 or 1934. By that time a new street, Weybridge Lane (with three other Dunlavy/Wills houses), had been extended from Gardner Path to Weybridge Road. The address was then changed to 37 Weybridge Lane.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wills had been entering his houses in architectural competitions since the mid-1920s, seeing in them an opportunity, win or lose, to promote his name and his work. In 1929, he had won a regional first place award in the annual Better Homes in America small house competition. In 1932, he entered the Dunlavy house in the same competition and was awarded the Gold Medal for the best small house in the country.</span></p>
<p align="center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/BzUC0jo.jpg" alt="37 Weybridge Lane" width="480" height="375" /></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"The first prize plan by Mr. Wills," said the award committee (as reported in February 26, 1933 edition of the <em>New York Times</em>)</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;">shows great charm, expresses the spirit of the locality in which it is built, has a fine scale and composition and shows good use of materials. It has an air of domesticity and shows great care in the manner in which all detail has been brought together. There is a good, frank use of chimneys and a fine handling of the entrance terrace.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;">This one-and-a-half story plan is compact and well arranged. There is a fine relation of rooms combined with economic and efficient circulation. The library is arranged with real privacy. The second floor hall occupies the minimum amount of space and yet this small home has ample-sized rooms.</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p align="center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/kkJj6Ui.jpg" alt="37 Weybridge Lane plan" width="541" height="303" /></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wills received his award at the White House from President Herbert Hoover, honorary chairman of Better Homes in America. Hoover, as Secretary of Commerce under Presidents Harding and Coolidge, had been a major supporter of the organization in its early years and was the primary force behind its reorganization and continued prominence through the late 1920s and into the 1930s.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wills and Dunlavy were responsible for 24 other houses in Blake Park in addition to this one. Maurice Dunlavy (1896-1994) and his wife Mary (1903-1979) lived in this house for only four years. They were shown here in the Street List from 1931 to 1934.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The next residents were Ethel M. and H. WIlliam Ittman (or Ittmann) who may have acquired the means to purchase this house through an unusual windfall. When Ethel Ittman's elderly and reclusive aunt, Alice Hayden, died in WIsconsin in July 1934, more than $200,000 was found hidden in her home in a bureau drawer and an old laundry bag. (Hayden's husband, who had died more than 30 years earlier, had been one of the most prominent attorneys in the state.) Hayden's will, according to a story in the <em>Chicago Tribune</em>, divided the money equally between Ethel Ittman (1884-1968, born in Wisconsin) and her son William Jr. (with the exception of $5,000 left to Hayden's sister, who was Ethel Ittman's mother.) The Ittmans were first listed at 37 Weybridge Lane the following year.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">William Ittman was born Hans Wilhelm Itmann in Germany c1888 and came to the United States in 1914. He was an investment broker, although he was shown as retired beginning in 1939. The Ittman's son William (1916-1982) was listed with them at this address through 1939. William Ittman Sr. was listed through 1944, and members of the family continued to be listed at this house until the early 1950s.</span></p>
1930
33 Weybridge Lane
<table width="100%" border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr valign="top"><td width="31%" class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Year Built:<br />Permit Date:</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td width="69%" class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1933<br />11/25/1933</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Architect:</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Royal Barry Wills</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Builder:</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Maurice Dunlavy</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cost to Build:</span></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">$8,000</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Owner <br />(On Permit Date):</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Maurice Dunlavy</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First Residents:</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Harry E. & Jessie Chase</span></td>
</tr></tbody></table><p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">33 Weybridge Lane, like all four of the houses on this small and still private street (and 21 others in Blake Park), was designed by Royal Barry Wills and built by Maurice A. Dunlavy.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The first residents of this house were Harry and Jessie Chase. Harry E. Chase (born c1869) was president of the Chase Express Company, founded by his father Charles in 1862. The firm, based in Brookline with several offices in Boston, delivered packages, financial documents, and other materials, serving businesses and others as a kind of predecessor of today's UPS, Federal Express, and the like. (American Express and Wells Fargo, among others, had their origins in this kind of express service.)</span></p>
<center><img src="https://i.imgur.com/uwZ6Yr4.jpg" alt="Chase Express ad" /></center>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Chase Express offices at 66 Washington Street -- part of the area where Brook House is today -- at one time included stables for several dozen horses and the wagons they pulled as part of the express business.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Chase family was listed at this house from 1935 until the early 1950s.</span></p>
1933
25 Weybridge Lane
<table width="100%" border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr valign="top"><td width="31%" class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Year Built:<br />Permit Date:</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td width="69%" class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1932<br />11/10/1932</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Architect:</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Royal Barry Wills</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Builder:</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Maurice Dunlavy</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cost to Build:</span></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">$8,000</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Owner <br />(On Permit Date):</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Maurice Dunlavy</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First Residents:</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Oscar B. & Anne D. Hawes</span></td>
</tr></tbody></table><p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">25 Weybridge Lane, like all four of the houses on this small and still private street (and 21 others in Blake Park), was designed by Royal Barry Wills and built by Maurice A. Dunlavy.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The first owners of this house were Oscar and Anne Hawes. They were listed at this address in the Street List from 1934 to 1938 and again beginning in 1943. (They apparently rented the house to other tenants in the intervening years.)</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Rev. Oscar Brown Hawes (c1872-1963) was a Unitarian minister. He graduated from Harvard University in 1893 and later attended the Harvard Divinity School. He was ordained in 1897. He served as a minister in Colorado and Toronto and then, for 17 years, in the Germantown section of Philadelphia. After additional stints in New Jersey, Newton, MA, and New Hampshire, he came to Brookline as minister of the Second Unitarian Society -- their meeting house at the corner of Sewall Avenue and Charles Street is now Temple Sinai -- in the mid-1930s and served there until his retirement in 1938.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The house was rented to various tenants for the next four years, including: Blanche E. Sinclair, a nurse (listed in 1939); James F. Dawson, a salesman, and his wife Hazel (1940); Dorothy Roberts, a housewife who had been in China (1941); and Betsy Webster, a housewife (1942.)</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Oscar Hawes and his wife Anne (c1880-1957), who had retired to Maine, returned to the Weybridge Lane house and were listed there again from 1943 until the early 1950s.</span></p>
1932
17 Weybridge Lane
<table width="100%" border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr valign="top"><td width="31%" class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Year Built:<br />Permit Date:</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td width="69%" class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1932<br />11/10/1932</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Architect:</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Royal Barry Wills</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Builder:</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Maurice Dunlavy</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cost to Build:</span></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">$7,000</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Owner <br />(On Permit Date):</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Maurice Dunlavy</span></td>
</tr><tr valign="top"><td class="label">
<div align="right"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First Residents:</span></strong></div>
</td>
<td class="tabletext1"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Osborne & Lucia E. Sharples</span></td>
</tr></tbody></table><p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">17 Weybridge Lane, like all four of the houses on this small and still private street (and 21 others in Blake Park), was designed by Royal Barry Wills and built by Maurice A. Dunlavy.</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The first residents of this house were Osborne and Lucia Sharples. Osborne Sharples was born in England in 1881 and came to the U.S. in 1913. He was listed as an engineer for most of the years he was in the Street List, but as a chauffer during the war years. (He had also been listed as a chauffer in the 1930 U.S. Census.)</span></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He and his wife Lucia (c1890-1971) had an adopted daughter Dorothy (1908-1977). A teacher, she was art director at Lesley College from 1943 to 1962 and later was art director for the Winthrop School Department until her retirement in 1973. The Sharples family was listed at this address from 1934 until the early 1970s.</span></p>
1932