Osgood Hill – also known as the Stevens Estate at Osgood Hill– is a mansion and estate at 709–23 Osgood Street in

North Andover, Massachusetts North Andover is an affluent town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. At the 2020 census the population was 30,915. History Native Americans inhabited what is now northeastern Massachusetts for thousands of years prior to European c ...

. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1999.

Textile manufacturer Moses Tyler Stevens created the estate between 1884 and 1886, with architect

William Cummings Richardson William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

, who designed the mansion and several outbuildings. Richardson emulated the

Romanesque Revival Romanesque Revival (or Neo-Romanesque) is a style of building employed beginning in the mid-19th century inspired by the 11th- and 12th-century Romanesque architecture. Unlike the historic Romanesque style, Romanesque Revival buildings tended to ...

style popularized by H. H. Richardson (no relation). Osgood Hill is one of the finest intact examples of the Aesthetic Design Movement of the late 1800's. Inspired by Oscar Wilde's 1882 North American lecture tours on the subject of the Aesthetic Movement, the " House Beautiful" at Osgood Hill was designed as a dramatic acknowledgement of the philosophy of the famed playwright, poet genius and social commentator; that the vital intensity of the aesthetic experience is the paramount goal in human life, that art needs no justification and need not serve a moral purpose. The property has three times been saved from development: in 1951 it was donated to

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...

by the Stevens heirs to avoid that fate; and the town of North Andover purchased the property in 1995 when the university planned to sell it for development as house lots. It is operated as a conference center and is a popular venue for weddings.

References

Historic districts in Essex County, Massachusetts Shingle Style architecture in Massachusetts National Register of Historic Places in Essex County, Massachusetts North Andover, Massachusetts Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts Hartwell and Richardson buildings {{EssexCountyMA-NRHP-stub

See also

References