Frances and Isabella Apartments

Two matching brick apartment buildings occupy the full block of Dudley Street between Woodward and Clarence Streets in Roxbury, Boston. Built in 1887 in the Queen Anne style, they rise three stories and have corner towers with conical copper roofs and three-story bow windows on the side walls. The brickwork is richly detailed, with corbelled belt courses, scalloped cornices and patterned panels, and brownstone keystones, lintels and sills. Nameplates read Frances and Isabella. Each building was originally laid out with two apartments per floor; a 1952 renovation split these units, and in 1981 the buildings became lodging houses. The exteriors have changed very little, though most windows have replacement sash. Many historic interior finishes survive, including trim, paneled doors and some mantelpieces. The buildings were listed for their architecture, as rare high-style apartment blocks in a neighborhood of simpler wood-frame housing, and as two of five known works by architect Jacob Goldsmith. They also reflect Roxbury's late nineteenth-century residential growth.