Abbotsford
- Architect
- Alden Frink
- Year
- 1875
- Style
- Gothic Revival
- City
- Boston, MA
Abbotsford at 300 Walnut Avenue in Boston was built in 1872 for industrialist Aaron Davis Williams Jr. by Boston architect Alden Frink in the High Victorian Gothic style, its pointed-arch windows and entrance evoking a medieval castle. After business setbacks forced Williams to sell, the house passed to James M. Smith, a Scottish immigrant who had come to Boston in 1854.
the building
An industrialist's medieval fantasy. Williams made his fortune from industrialization, yet chose pointed Gothic arches for his windows and entrance—a style that let him live inside a nostalgic vision of the pre-industrial past even as his money came from the machines that were replacing it.
the style
Abbotsford's pointed arches on its windows and main entrance are the signature of High Victorian Gothic, a revival style drawing on medieval architecture. Built just as the American economy was industrializing, the style let owner Aaron Davis Williams surround himself with an image of a pre-machine past.
More on Gothic Revivalsignificance
Abbotsford is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and today operates as the Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, dedicated to black visual arts heritage worldwide.
nearby
- Home for Aged Couples
- Malcolm X Ella Little-Collins House
- Charles Street African Methodist Episcopal Church
- Congregation Adath Jeshurun
- Alvah Kittredge House
- Bowditch School