{"nrhp_refnum":"87001478","name":"Austin, Francis B., House","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"58 High St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Boston","county":"Suffolk County","state":"MA","lat":42.376281523000046,"lon":-71.07633079599998,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1988-10-21","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A wood-frame Second Empire house at 58 High Street, at the corner of Wood Street in Charlestown (Boston), built ca. 1865 by Francis Boylston Austin as an enlargement of his father's earlier house.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the house retains integrity of design, setting and materials and is a substantial local example of the Second Empire style. It is also associated with two generations of the Austin family, prominent in Charlestown politics, law, literature and commerce.","narrative":"Standing at the corner of High and Wood Streets in Charlestown, this wood-frame house shows the Second Empire style in a neighborhood of late nineteenth-century rowhouses. Francis Boylston Austin enlarged it about 1865 from the earlier two-family house of his father, William Austin, adding a mansard roof of hexagonal slate, a boxed cornice with modillion brackets, segmentally arched dormers and molded window cases. Inside, marble mantelpieces, ornamental plaster and a wood stair balustrade survive. William Austin was a lawyer, state legislator and the author of the story Peter Rugg, while his son worked as a merchant in dry goods and later iron and steel. The house later served as a rooming house and, in 1985, was rehabilitated into five apartments, with shingles added in 1931 removed to expose the original clapboards. It was listed for its architecture and its ties to the Austin family.","period_of_significance":"ca. 1832 - 1903","architect_builder":"Unknown (enlarged ca. 1865 by owner Francis Boylston Austin)","architectural_style":"Late Victorian - Second Empire","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Converted into five residential units in 1985 through a rehabilitation following the Secretary of the Interior's Standards; historic function was single-family and current function is multiple-family housing.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:13:01.487166-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/4/7967/63796704/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/87001478.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/87001478/90038bcc0f-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/87001478/90038bcc0f-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Jameslwoodward","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Francis_B._Austin_House_Boston_MA_01.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Jameslwoodward</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Francis_B._Austin_House_Boston_MA_01.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63796704","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_B._Austin_House","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5480077"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/suffolk-county/austin-francis-b-house-87001478/"}