Joseph Thorpe House

One of the first and certainly the most inventive of New England architects to reclaim colonial forms for modern architecture, Arthur Little here created a pastiche of Federal period buildings. In 1882, Little published Early New England Interiors, a selection of his drawings of details from colonial houses. More than a decade later, this large residence still betrayed that vignette attitude. Unlike other Colonial Revival designers who were by the 1890s disciplining picturesque variety, Little reveled in a complicated and quirky design. The street front is actually the rear elevation, with its projecting service wing flanked by a monumental portico. The rear entrance facade, originally overlooking a generous lawn and garden, is symmetrically organized. Today architect Graham Gund has claimed that lawn as part of the site for his center-block residence (2001), only partly visible beyond Little's building.