"Igor's Mansion" aka "The Four Winds", the house that Alice Pearmain built on the side of the mountain.
This concrete house was built on the side of Nobscot mountain at the turn of the 20th century by Alice Upton Pearmain. It was demolished so don't go looking for it.
Alice Pearmain went to school at Wellesley college (class of 1883). Back then, she was known as Alice Upton. In 1886, she became Alice Pearmain as she married Sumner Pearmain of Boston, a banker and broker. Alice was the mother of four children. Her oldest son, William Robert Pearmain, was a painter. Apparently, he was good buddy with George de Forest Brush.
The house was designed by Alice Pearmain herself and built by Benj. A. Howes, Engineer.
Blueprints of Alice Pearman's house in Framingham. From "Concrete country residences" By "Atlas Portland Cement Company".
Ad for Benjamin Howes featuring the Pearmain house in "Country Life" of September 1908.
Short biographies for the Pearmains in "Who's who in America", Volume 11, 1920-21.
In the above article, we learn that "Four Winds" was located on Wayside Inn Road and that it was inhabited, at least, part-time. That concrete house was featured in architectural magazines as some kind of wonder of the modern world. Surely, somebody out there knows the why of its demise. Concrete houses are fairly common in old Europe but failed to catch on in the US, probably because wood is widely available, easy to work on, and quite cheap. Here, it seems that they (the designer and builder) might have a gone a tad overboard and used a little bit too much of the concrete.
We live on the Pearmain estate, in the last building standing--the concrete livery stable where Igor had his apartment right on Wayside Inn Rd. When we moved here in 2001 the main house at the top of the hill was still here, but was empty and was demolished several years later by the developer who bought the land. Our house was converted from livery stable to home in the 70s, but still has a row of small windows that were in each of the horse stalls and the concrete horse troughs that are now in our living room.
ReplyDeleteAt some point I would love too your home. Thus is Phil Dubuque. I photographed the abandoned Four Wind mansion inside and out and eventually gave a presentation at Framingham History. Among the attendees were descendants of Alice Pearmain.
ReplyDeleteHello Phil - can you please contact me at charlenefrary@gmail.com? I'd like to chat more with you about your presentation at the Framingham History Center and your photos of the Four Winds Estate
ReplyDeleteMy friends and I partied at the abandoned mansion for a summer before it was torn down. https://youtu.be/MqLhBMrSNvU one of my friends made a trailer for a zombie movie we wanted to make there. Sadly, someone lit a fire in one of the fireplaces and the cops busted us.
ReplyDeleteI used to party up there while I was in high school. That place could get real spooky sometimes. There was a basement that had a jail cell.
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