Beaconsfield Terraces Historic District

Beaconsfield Terraces is a group of attached townhouses along Tappan Street and Garrison Road in Brookline, built between 1889 and 1892. Developer Eugene Knapp, inspired by arrangements he saw in England, created households with individually owned units and shared amenities such as a six-acre park, stables, a casino, tennis courts and conservatories. The Boston firm Fehmer and Page designed the terraces in three styles: Chateauesque in yellow brick and fieldstone, a Flemish design with limestone-trimmed gables, and Georgian Revival in red brick with Palladian windows and Corinthian porticoes. Construction followed an English plan of thick walls and solid roofs, and the complex had its own boiler house supplying steam heat. It sat near the widened Beacon Street and its streetcar line, which helped sales. The district is significant as an early example of condominium-style living and for the towers and turrets that shaped nearby Beacon Street architecture. Several shared amenities and the later Hotel Beaconsfield are gone.