Robert Treat Paine Estate

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The Robert Treat Paine Estate (109 acres), formerly known as Stonehurst, is a country house designed in collaboration between architect Henry Hobson Richardson and landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. It is located at 100 Robert Treat Paine House Drive, Waltham, Massachusetts. Since 1974 the estate has been owned by the City of Waltham, and is believed to be the only residential collaboration by Richardson and Olmsted that is open to the public.

Today's composite house began in 1866 when philanthropist Robert Treat Paine, Jr. (1810-1905) and his wife Lydia Lyman Paine commissioned architect Gridley James Fox Bryant to build a mansarded Second Empire summer house in Waltham. The house and its site were paid for by George Lyman, Lydia’s father and owner of an adjacent summer residence, the Lyman Estate. This original house, however, proved too small for the Paines and their seven children.

Thus in October 1883, Richardson and Olmsted made their first visit to the property to discuss relocating the extant 1866 Second Empire house, and designing both the surrounding grounds and a large Richardsonian addition to the house. Discussion continued until July 1884, when Olmsted and Richardson produced sketches, and agreed on a new house site high atop a rocky ridge with sweeping views to the southeast. In the spring of 1885, construction began on the new addition while the Paine family traveled to Europe with Phillips Brooks. When Richardson died prematurely at age 47 in April of 1886, the commission was close to complete. The terrace and some interior finishes were completed over the summer. The final cost was just over $36,000.