This house was built sometime in the late 1860s in the Italianate style and sold to H.H. Rogers in 1902. In that year, Rogers asked Charles Brigham to update the architecturally out-of-fashion home and he created a new façade, as many of the wealthy homeowners in the still-upscale neighborhood did. Brigham designed an imposing limestone mansion overflowing with classical details—scrolled broken pediments embracing carved urns over the parlor windows, two-story fluted pilasters at the upper floors, menacing carved lions heads in the brackets of the limestone balcony and elaborate oversized volutes that rolled away from the free-standing Corinthian entrance columns.
Brigham used a number of these elements on other of his designs including Rogers’ Fairhaven mansion, the Mass. State House extension and the Bank Building in Watertown.
Unusual for the East Side of Manhattan, Brigham used a dog-leg stoop. But unlike its West Side counterparts, he treated it imperiously. Squared columns with Ionic pilasters supported four classical urns. Ornate ironwork provided a screen and regal iron gates protected the service entrance.
