1886, John Lyman Faxon. 275 Dartmouth St.
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Hotel Victoria (Peter Vanderwarker or Antonina Smith)
Although its ground floor has been encumbered with an unfortunate storefront projection along Newbury Street, the Hotel Victoria's original rusticated basement has been retained along part of its Dartmouth Street elevation. First-floor windows feature cusped arches supported by colonettes, some of which enclose surviving transoms of leaded glass. Typifying the period's delight in contrasting volumes and materials, bays both octagonal and cylindrical in plan undulate across brick facades bedizened with ornamental terra-cotta lintels whose rich red surfaces are a tangle of Islamic ornament. The crenellated parapet strikes a note of Moorish fantasy on an otherwise sober Boston skyline. The building has been converted to condominiums.