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Back in Boston in 1816 and working on a house for David Sears, Parris found himself dealing with a reversed site condition: a principle facade at streetfront facing south. His clever, if unorthodox, solution on a corner site was to distribute the three principle rooms, in a configuration similar to the Wickham House, along the south side and to develop an entry sequence off the side street to the east, a parti that Latrobe never considered and that probably would not have satisfied the sense of formality prevalent among Southern and Mid-Atlantic clients. The Sears House facade illustrates that Parris also took back to Boston a preference for austere exterior form that served him well amidst the late work of Bulfinch rendered in granite, such as the Massachusetts General Hospital.

A little farther north, John McComb continued his methodically practice. In 1801-02, he designed the Grange (Figure 39), the country house of former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton. Its imaginative, if stiff, plan of double, elongated octagons encased in squares and rectangles presents McComb at his most adventurous. However, by this time, his career had so expanded that he did not have to concentrate on domestic commissions, and he never again explored such provocative themes.

The New York City Hall Competition of 1802 was won by McComb and Joseph Mangin. It seems evident from the French spirit of the drawings that Mangin strongly influenced the design. It seems equally obvious from the details of the executed building that McComb made many decisions during the construction phase, which he alone supervised. The elevation and section are decidedly French, while the plan could easily have been the work of English Neo-Palladian William Kent, and the interior ornament is decidedly Adamesque.

By 1800 Charles Bulfinch, while still an adherent of Adamesque exterior form, had developed his own unique form of domestic planning. The house that he designed for Ezekial Hersey Derby (ca. 1800) in Salem, Massachusetts represents his best work, with its thin, taut facade, not unlike his much later and much celebrated Lancaster Meeting House (1816-17), and reserved, pragmatic plan with no pretensions to monumentality (Figure 40). His alternative scheme (Figure 41) illustrates just how uncomfortable he remained with a composition based upon an axial, central entry-hall and the difficulty he had within such a configuration in coordinating major and minor spaces and primary and secondary paths of circulation. Bulfinch's design as constructed establishes a clear hierarchy of spaces and allows for circulation adjacent to both the principal stair and the nearby servants' stair, which serves as a transitional zone between the family rooms and kitchen. Like Bulfinch himself, the plan is quite competent but self-effacing.

In 1805-08 Bulfinch designed a third house for Harrison Gray Otis (Figures 42-43). No longer slightly anemic, like the first Otis house, or brittle and ambivalent like the second, it can be admired for its crisp, dignified planarity. The plan is not so successful or memorable as the Derby House, although much published, with the family stair reached only by a sidling movement from the vestibule on the first floor and positioned on the second floor such that none of the surrounding rooms can be approached axially from it. On the other hand, these rooms, a dining and two drawing rooms--one of which once had a great bow window--offer splendid opportunities for entertaining and must have been even more dramatic before Bulfinch built a house for his daughter on the site to the east, embedding the bow window in it.

Bulfinch's deferential and diplomatic nature and his many years working effectively as a member of Boston's city government served him well when he assumed Latrobe's duties at the U. S. Capitol in 1817. Willing to carry out the designs of others, except for his own interventions at the west portico and the rotunda and his building of an awkward, wooden dome (now, fortunately, replaced), and willing to forego an extensive private practice, Bulfinch worked amicably with the Congress--an extraordinary accomplishment in and of itself. Where the mercurial L'Enfant, intransigent Hallet, vulnerable Hadfield, and temperamental Latrobe had failed, Bulfinch succeeded. The last architect at the Capitol in the Federal Period, Bulfinch made way for now-established practitioners, his successor being Thomas Ustick Walter whose professional lineage led directly back to Latrobe through William Strickland. END

FIGURE 39: The Grange, nr. New York City (1801-02), First-floor plan (Fazio). John McComb designed this country house for George Washington's Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton. Its imaginative, if stiff, plan of double, elongated octagons incised in squares and rectangles represents McComb at his most adventurous. However, by the time of its design, his career had matured to the point that he did not have to concentrate on domestic commissions and he never again explored such provocative themes. It was McComb’s collaboration with Frenchman Joseph Mangin in their design of the New York City Hall that has been most celebrated. With a section traceable to French work, a plan remniscient of William Kent, and decidedly Adamesque ornamentation, it was chosen in competition over a design submitted by Benjamin Latrobe. back

FIGURE 40: Ezekial Hersey Derby House, Salem, Massachusetts (ca.1800), Unbuilt first-floor plan (Fazio). Charles Bulfinch’s unbuilt plan illustrates his continuing high level of discomfort with a composition based upon an axial, central entry hall and the difficulty he had within such a configuration in coordinating major and minor spaces and primary and secondary paths of circulation. back

FIGURE 41: Ezekial Hersey Derby House, Salem, First-floor plan as constructed (Fazio). The Derby House as constructed shows the degree to which Bulfinch matured as a designer pursuing those themes with which he was comfortable. The reserved, pragmatic plan has no pretensions to monumentality. Matters of orientation aside, it has a strong kinship to Latrobe’s fully developed rational house parti; its principal rooms occupy one side while stairs and support spaces occupy the other. The obvious difference between the work of the two men is the inclusion of a wide central hall for circulation, which Latrobe would have never accepted; but this hall is more like the transverse passage used by Bulfinch in his earlier Swan and Barrell houses than the ubiquitous central hall found in English and American domestic designs. The parti neatly separates major and minor spaces and allows for circulation adjacent to both the principal stair and the nearby servants’ stair, which serves as a transitional zone between the family rooms and kitchen. Like Bulfinch himself, the result is quite competent and self effacing. back

FIGURE 42: Third Harrison Gray Otis House, Boston (1805-08), Second-floor plan (Fazio). Bulfinch designed three houses for railroad magnate Harrison Gray Otis. The plan of this third iteration is not so successful or memorable as the Derby House, although much published, with the family stair reached only by a sidling movement from the vestibule on the first floor and positioned on the second floor such that none of the surrounding rooms can be approached axially from it. On the other hand, these rooms, a dining room and two drawing rooms--one of which once had a great bow window--offer splendid opportunities for entertaining and must have been even more dramatic before Bulfinch built a house for his daughter on the site to the east, embedding the bow window in it. The facade of the first Otis house was slightly anemic; the second brittle and somewhat ambivalent; but the third can be admired for the crisp, dignified planarity, which became emblematic of the best moments in Bulfinch’s oeuvre. Perhaps its understated confidence explains his long success as an elected official in Boston and subsequently as Surveyor of the Public Buildings when he assumed Latrobe’s duties at the U. S. Capitol. Willing to carry out the designs of others, except for his own interventions at the west portico and the rotunda and his building of an awkward, wooden dome, now fortunately replaced, and willing to forego an extensive private practice, Bulfinch worked amicably with the Congress--an extraordinary accomplishment in and of itself. Where the mercurial L’Enfant, intransigent Hallet, vulnerable Hadfield, and temperamental Latrobe failed, Bulfinch succeeded. back

FIGURE 43: Third Harrison Gray Otis House, Boston (1805-08), Exterior photograph (Courtesy of Historic New England, Photograph by Arthur Haskell (neg.#10120-AH). Among Bulfinch's three facade designs for Harrison Gray Otis, this is certainly the most advanced. The first, completed in 1796, has a light, delicate, almost embroidered quality, very much a Federal style creation. Five-bays wide, it presents a significant ground story, a more significant second story, and a low third story and hipped roof. The second Otis house of 1800-01 also has five bays, but is capped by a balustrade, with no roof structure visible. Its first story has segmental, retrea-arches, and its second and third stories are connoted by tall Corinthian pilasters, making it a descendent of Bramante's House of Raphael. There is no entry door into the principal facade, with access made along the sidewall. Bulfinch's third and final Otis house was built in 1805-06, has five bays like the previous two, a balustrade, and a small Ionic porch. This porch is part of a low and clearly subordinate ground story. The second story, with its tall windows and their elaborate surrounds, is clearly the principal floor (Latrobe's preference for his rational houses), as the chamber-story windows above are much smaller and have no surrounds. back