The Gibson House Museum is an

historic house museum A historic house museum is a house of historic significance that has been transformed into a museum. Historic furnishings may be displayed in a way that reflects their original placement and usage in a home. Historic house museums are held to a ...

located at 137 Beacon Street in the

Back Bay Back Bay is an officially recognized neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, built on reclaimed land in the Charles River basin. Construction began in 1859, as the demand for luxury housing exceeded the availability in the city at the time, and t ...

neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It preserves the 1860 Victorian rowhouse occupied by three generations of the Gibson family. The house was one of the first to be built in Back Bay, and has an unparalleled state of preservation that includes wallpaper, textiles, furnishings, and family artifacts and collections. Both the public and service areas of the house exhibit a high degree of preservation, and are viewable on tours. The property was designated a

Boston Landmark A Boston Landmark is a designation by the Boston Landmarks Commission for historic buildings and sites throughout the city of Boston based on the grounds that it has historical, social, cultural, architectural or aesthetic significance to New Engla ...

in 1992 by the

Boston Landmarks Commission The Boston Landmarks Commission (BLC) is the historic preservation agency for the City of Boston. The commission was created by state legislation i1975 History Urban renewal in the United States started with the Housing Act of 1949, part of Presid ...

and a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

in 2001.

History

The widowed Catherine Hammond Gibson purchased the newly filled in land for $3,696 in 1859 in order to move away from Beacon Hill. Edward Clarke Cabot designed the building which was finished by 1860 in the

Italian Renaissance The Italian Renaissance ( it, Rinascimento ) was a period in Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe and marked the trans ...

style with an exterior of brownstone and red brick. She passed it on to her son Charles Hammond Gibson. Charles married Rosamond Warren in 1871 and brought her to live at number 137."Gibson House Museum History" Accessed on 7/17/2013 Rosamond was from a very distinguished Boston family and after Catherine's death in 1888 redecorated the house with Japanese wallpapers. After Charles Hammond Gibson, Jr., Catherine Hammond Gibson's grandson, died in 1954, the house became a museum in 1957, and in 2001 was declared a

. The Gibson House's landmark status is due to its claim that it is the only Victorian era row house in Boston's Back Bay to maintain the integral relationship between the exterior architectural shell and the original interior plan, with its accompanying decorative schemes. Its interior is a composite of family furnishings and pieces added to make it more complete.

Museum

The museum hosts public tours and programming including lectures and receptions. In 2013
Simple Machine Theatre
staged a production of The Turn of the Screw on the Museum'

before an audience seated in the entrance. To commemorate Charles Hammond Gibson, Jr.'s reputation as a

Prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcohol ...

-era party host, the Museum hosts an annual

Repeal A repeal (O.F. ''rapel'', modern ''rappel'', from ''rapeler'', ''rappeler'', revoke, ''re'' and ''appeler'', appeal) is the removal or reversal of a law. There are two basic types of repeal; a repeal with a re-enactment is used to replace the law ...

Day Celebration fundraiser, featuring period cocktails.^{I n}

In film

The 1984 Merchant/Ivory film ''

The Bostonians ''The Bostonians'' is a novel by Henry James, first published as a serial in '' The Century Magazine'' in 1885–1886 and then as a book in 1886. This bittersweet tragicomedy centres on an odd triangle of characters: Basil Ransom, a political c ...

'' contains scenes filmed in Rosamund Warren Gibson'
bedroom
in the red study, and on the landing at the top of the grand staircase. A 2018 promotional film fo
Boston Ballet's production of ''The Nutcracker''
features scenes of Clara in the Museum's Music Room and on th

In 2018 director

Greta Gerwig Greta Celeste Gerwig (; born August 4, 1983) is an American actress, screenwriter, and director. She first garnered attention after working on and appearing in several mumblecore films. Between 2006 and 2009, she appeared in a number of films ...

filmed scenes in the Museum for '' Little Women''. The Museum served as the boarding house residence of

Jo March ''Little Women'' is a coming-of-age novel written by American novelist Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888). Alcott wrote the book, originally published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869, at the request of her publisher. The story follows the lives ...

, while the Museum library was depicted as the office of Jo March's publishe
Gibson House Museum/Little Women

References

External links

The Gibson House Museum

Boston Landmarks CommissionThe Gibson House Study Report
{{National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts Houses in Boston Landmarks in Back Bay, Boston Historic house museums in Massachusetts Museums in Boston National Historic Landmarks in Boston Houses completed in 1860 Historic district contributing properties in Massachusetts Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Suffolk County, Massachusetts National Register of Historic Places in Boston

History

Museum

In film

See also

References

External links