Franklin Place - The Tontine Crescent

The Tontine Crescent

The name “Tontine” derives from a financial scheme originated by Neapolitan banker Lorenzo de Tonti, which he introduced in France in the 17th century. Money for the enterprise was to be raised by selling shares of stock to the members of the public, who would later share in the profits from the sale of the homes. It is essentially an annuity, the shares passing on the death of each beneficiary to the surviving partner until all are held by a single shareholder, or being divided among surviving stockholders at the end of a stated period. Although this method of financing was in rather wide use in Europe at the time, the Massachusetts General Court refused articles of incorporation and the project ultimately rested on Bulfinch’s meager business talent.

On July 6, 1793, the Columbian Centinel carried the following notice: “The public are hereby informed that a plan is proposed for building a number of convenient, elegant, in a central situation, and a scheme of tontine association. The proposals for subscription, and the plans of the Houses, may be seen at the office of Mr., State-Street.” By the end of the month a sufficient number of subscriptions had been received to warrant the letting of contracts for “the framing, and the door-cases and window-frames of the proposed Tontine Building.” The cornerstone was laid on August 8, and the Crescent was completed the following year.

Building began with less than 50% of the shares taken up and continued in a discouraging atmosphere created by the prolonged negotiations over the Jay Treaty. Bulfinch completed the project, including its complementary file of four double houses facing across the grass plot (17-24 Franklin Place), but in so doing sacrificed both his and his wife’s fortunes. As events proved, the Crescent was far too ambitious an idea for either the man or the times, and he and his family were ruined by his determination to finish it at all costs. However, he was gratified “in knowing that not one of my creditors was materially injured, many were secured the full amount, and the deduction on the balance due to workmen did not exceed 10 PC on their entire bills.”

Bulfinch’s first attempt to introduce monumental town planning into Boston, the Crescent was an interesting failure, unlike any other building in America. In fact, not even London had a crescent at the time; the architect relied for his model primarily on examples he had seen in Bath—a memory reinforced by a folio of Bath pictures preserved in his library. The Crescent no doubt also owed something to the well-known plan Robert Adam devised for two half circles of connecting houses as an extension of London’s Portland Place, as well as certain examples Bulfinch had seen in Paris. In architectural detail, the Crescent recalls the Adelphi Terrace, which Bulfinch knew both as a center of Neoclassical building in London and as the haunt of exiled Tory relatives and family friends. (Adelphi too was a financial disaster, and the Adam brothers saved their project only through a lottery and the sale of their art collections; Bulfinch lacked such resources.)

This innovative project for a new and fashionable residential district south of the central business district was located in an undeveloped, unpromising bit of fields and marshlands between Milk Street and Summer Street that consisted in part of a quagmire that Joseph Barrell—Bulfinch’s former employer, who had a house on Summer Street—had partially drained and converted into a fish pond in his garden. Its western edge intersected today’s Hawley Street, and on the east it ended near Federal Street. Until the American Revolution, Boston still had enough space in most locations to accommodate single dwellings with small gardens. However, as land values began to rise, many newer dwellings began to be built with their narrow ends to the street and their entrances on the side. With his long row of attached houses, Bulfinch gambled that wealthy individuals would not mind living in relatively cramped quarters. Knowing that most wealthy Londoners living in garden squares also had country estates, he believed perhaps that potential residents of Franklin Place would also have summer homes with large gardens elsewhere.

Thomas Pemberton described the Crescent at the time of completion as “a range of sixteen well built and handsome dwelling houses, extending four hundred and eighty feet in length…The general appearance is simple and uniform.” As Bulfinch’s elevation shows, the chief feature was a central pavilion, slightly higher than the Crescent’s wings, with a large arch that spanned a passageway passing entirely through the structure, an attic story and two secondary pavilions projecting 6’ forward from the middle section. The form was suggested by Queen’s Square in Bath, constructed more than half a century earlier by John Wood, the Elder; the arch, with Palladian window, was probably taken from the Market in High Street, Bristol, traditionally attributed to Wood also. However, in style the Tontine Crescent was Neoclassical rather than Neo-Palladian, and its main architectural distinction, three ranges of pilasters rising two stories above an architectural basement, is taken from the Adelphi. Moreover, the structure contained all the Neoclassical elements of the new Federal style: attenuated pilasters on the central pavilion and two end pavilions that projected forward several feet, swag panels, and delicate fanlights and lunettes. The plan, which featured two large rooms (about 18’ x 18’) on each floor offset by a hallway with main and service staircases, was traditional with London row-house builders since the 17th century. Indeed, the Neoclassical façade of the Adam brothers’ Royal Society of Arts building in London was another inspiration for the central building. The houses’ brick exterior walls were painted gray to simulate masonry and the architectural detail, apparently all of wood, was painted white. Delicate decorative devices were present on the handsome three-floor houses, each 27’ wide, but ornament was so restrained that there were no frames around the windows. The identical doorways were spaced two to a porch. Each floor consisted of two large rooms, described by Massachusetts Magazine as “spacious and lofty”, with a hallway on one side containing both the main and service stairways.

Once finished, the Crescent received unanimous praise from contemporaries. Asher Benjamin claimed it “gave the first impulse to good taste; and to architecture, in this part of the country.” Massachusetts Magazine called the style “the most improved of modern elegance” and was especially impressed by the spacious rooms and the attention given to household conveniences: “Each house will have annexed to it a pump, rain water cistern, wood house, and a stable, and a back avenue will communicate to all the stables.” Bulfinch was also praised for presenting the large room behind the Palladian window above the arch to the Boston Library Society and the attic above to the newly-founded Massachusetts Historical Society, which at the time was lodged in the northwest corner of Faneuil Hall’s attic. (Granted, Bulfinch and his partners did realize it might be difficult to find buyers for the two pavilion rooms, potentially unsuitable for residences.) The Library Society remained there until the building’s demolition in 1858, when the city paid it $12,000 for its room, while the Historical Society stayed until 1833, moving next to the King's Chapel burying ground because of cramping and fear of fire.