Rollins Place

Mid-block alleys and brick-paved culs-de-sac extend the Beacon Hill streetscape into miniature, charming vignettes. Among the most picturesque is 1–6 Rollins Place, one of four cul-de-sacs off of Revere Street. Modest Greek Revival brick town houses line the passage. The genius of the place, however, is the Ionic porticoed clapboard “house” at the end of the vista. Not really what it seems, this is only a wall with projecting shallow porch that screens Rollins Place from the twenty-five-foot drop to Phillips Street beyond. In the nineteenth century, coachmen, truckmen, and laborers occupied these houses.