Curious Objects: The "Confirmed Bachelor" Who Forever Changed American Homes

The “Pine Tree Flag,” hung in the Book Tower at Beauport, Gloucester Harbor, Massachusetts. Photograph by Chloe Schoppmeyer, courtesy of Historic New England, Haverhill, Massachusetts

In this episode of our podcast Curious Objects, host Benjamin Miller digs into the history of Beauport, the Gilded-Age mansion perched on a rock ledge overlooking Massachusetts’s Gloucester Harbor. It was built by Henry Davis Sleeper, one of the country’s first interior designers.

*Henry Davis Sleeper [1978–1934]* by Wallace Bryant (1870–1953), 1906. *Historic New England.*

It was conceived as a house-sized Valentine for the statesman and economist Piatt Andrew, the object of Sleeper’s (unrequited) affections.

*A. Piatt Andrew [1873–1936]* by Cecilia Beaux (1855–1942), 1903. *Cape Ann Museum, Gloucester, Massachusetts, gift of Red Roof Associates.*

Vin Cipolla, president and CEO of Historic New England, which stewards the house today; the institution’s curator of collections Erica Lome; and writer and curator R. Tripp Evans feature.

Vin Cipolla is President and CEO of Historic New England.

Erica Lome is Curator of Collections at Historic New England.

R. Tripp Evans is a writer and curator.