A Professional Showcase - Beauport

House Museum

Mar 25

Beauport, also known as the Sleeper-McCann House, was the shingle-style summer home of one of America’s first professional interior designers, Henry Davis Sleeper. Sleeper, who the tour guide described as “a gay man living in the early twentieth century”, used the house as an entertaining spot, professional showcase and retreat. It is perched on a ledge overlooking Gloucester Harbor. Some say Sleeper and lifelong bachelor, A. Piatt Andrew, were in a relationship; others say they were just friends. Andrew had a summer mansion in the Eastern Point area and was the person that introduced Sleeper to the area.

The original modest cottage was sufficiently finished in 1907, and as additional property surrounding his became available, he purchased it and expanded the home several times until 1925. Both Halfdan M. Hanson and Joseph Everett Chandler were architects involved with some portion of the finished home.

After Sleeper’s death in 1934, the house was inherited by his brother, Stephen Westcott Sleeper who couldn’t afford to keep it. In 1935, the conservation-minded Helena Woolworth McCann, heir to the Woolworth store chain, purchased the house and left it intact with few modifications. The McCann family spent several summers here until Mrs. McCann’s death in 1941. In 1944, Mr. McCann died and left the house to his two children. The children donated the house and all its contents to Historic New England the following year, with the caveat that they could stay there whenever they wanted, often just closing the bedroom door when a tour came through.

Beauport is Sleeper’s stage to display his curiosities, colored glass, folk art, china, and silhouettes. Sleeper did not have a formal education, only training from correspondence classes. Sleeper’s clients included Isabella Stewart Gardner and Henry Francis du Pont. The house tour is a trip through a maze of Sleeper’s artistry. It started out as a modest cottage and slowly expanded over the years into a forty room mansion, each room with a different name or theme, but only 26 rooms are included on the tour.

Beauport is open to the public as a house museum since 1947, and in 2003 the property was designated as a National Historic Landmark.

Here is what caught my eye, I hope you enjoy!

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The fairytale exterior of the house with pitched and uneven rooflines, tower and belfry

The houses’ pitched and uneven rooflines and chimney

Another view of the house exterior

Exterior decorative corbel

Another facade of the house

The house exterior with diamond-panel leaded-glass windows and chimney

The Bell Frame

The house exterior reflects Gothic, medieval, and early Colonial architecture styles.

Exterior detailed cobels

China cupboard in Cogswell Entrance Hall

Cogswell Entrance Hall

Sleeper was a collector of antiques, artifacts and furniture.

Sleeper found an ingenious way to illuminate 150 pieces of amber glass in the central hall by cleverly installing a skylight so that the collection was always naturally back-lit. The arch is a doorway salvaged from a house in Connecticut.

I can’t even imagine the time it takes to clean these shelves.

Sleeper would repurpose house shutters as panelling.

Sleeper freely repurposed historic materials, windows and leaded glass doors.

Strawberry Hill Room

The chandelier in Strawberry Hill Room, with dark wallpaper, contrasts with the bright sunshine that floods the room.

The Strawberry Hill Room

This room is evidence of Mr. Sleeper building rooms to accommodate the display. Notice the head and foot boards closest to the wall.

In 1924, those planning the new American wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City spent several weeks at Beauport, soaking up the placement of antiques and color schemes of its period-style rooms.

A corner chair in the Master Mariners Room

The Master Mariners Room

The Red Indian Room

This is the Red Indian Room, with twin beds and harbor view, where the McCann daughters could stay whenever they wanted, often just closing the bedroom door when a tour came through.

The Red Indian Room

The Red Indian Room Porch

Each space is meticulously staged.

The Master Mariners Room

The Red Indian Room Porch

The Master Mariners Room

The Master Mariners Room with coal stove

The Master Mariner’s Room with nautical articles

The Master Mariner’s Room with Windsor chair and binoculars to look out over the harbor

Various fireplaces and doorways from homes in Connecticut and Rhode Island

The Master Mariner’s Room

The Master Mariner’s Room with items on display

The Master Mariner’s Room

This is the North Gallery showing the eagle in the nest sculpture and skylight.

The Golden Step Room has a full wall of windows looking out onto Gloucester Harbor. The windows could be lowered into the wall to allow the guests to have open air dining.

This is the Golden Step Room with model ship over the fireplace.

Decorative arts in the Golden Step Room

Stove in the Golden Step Room

Amethyst glass alcove off the Octagon Room

The Octagon Room

The view of the Harbor from the Octagon Room

The Octagon Room

Looking out of the window in the Octagon Room

Silhouettes

This is a view of the Stair Hall with George Washington stove.

The Green Dining Room

200 year old story wallpaper showing the cultivation of rice

This wallpaper tells the story of the manufacturing of porcelain.

The China Trade Room hand-painted wallpaper was discovered tucked away in a Marblehead attic. The room was designed around the sections of wallpaper.

A nautical touch

Roof peaks decorated with whimsy

A ceramic squirrel sits on the brick wall, with the Harbor backdrop. The gardens of perennials and grasses near the rear brick terrace, overlook Gloucester Harbor.

The garden, like the house itself, evolved over several decades in the early 1900’s.

Exterior view of the roofs and chimneys

What you should know:

There is free parking across from the entrance to Beauport.
There are guided tours; check the website for tour times.
The house is not open every day; check the website for days and hours of operation.
Yearly memberships for Historic New England can be purchased here. This membership entitles the bearer to admission to any of the 30+ properties the organization runs in Massachusetts, Rhone Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Maine
There are a few house and garden tour options.
You could spend a few hours here.

Location: 75 Eastern Point Boulevard, Gloucester, Massachusetts 01930

For more information: Beauport