The Mary Baker Eddy Historic House at 400 Beacon Street, Mary Baker Eddy’s final home in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, has received a 2025 Preservation Award from the Victorian Society in America, the only national nonprofit organization committed to historic preservation and protection of the nation’s 19th-century heritage.
Citing “the exemplary restoration and adaptive reuse of this significant historic house,” the award notes that the residence, originally designed in 1880 by Peabody & Stearns, “underwent extensive restoration culminating in its conversion to a museum with re-created interiors, rehabilitated gardens, and full utility upgrades.” Longyear Museum partnered with Consigli Construction and DBVW Architects in undertaking this restoration.
The Victorian Society in America was founded in 1966 as a sister organization to the Victorian Society in the United Kingdom, after widespread dismay at the 1964 destruction of New York’s Pennsylvania Station. The award that Longyear received was one of three given for 2025. The other two recipients were the Belmont Chapel in Newport, Rhode Island, and 34 Gramercy Park East in New York City.