The Loring Greenough House is a Georgian Colonial mansion in our neighborhood, in the historic center of Jamaica Plain, which was then a village not yet part of Boston. It was built in 1760 by Joshua Loring, a commodore in the British colonial naval forces. Unfortunately, he did not get to enjoy it long as he had to flee when the Revolutionary War got underway. He returned to England permanently in 1776. The house was confiscated and used as a military hospital in the war. From 1784 on, it was owned and lived in by several generations of the Greenough family.
In 1924 the last Greenough put the house on the market, and it was in immediate danger of being demolished by a developer. An important Jamaica Plain women's club, the Tuesday Club, bought it to save it and has preserved it through the decades, using it as a club house. In recent years it has been opened up to the community more.
One of the nicest 21st century uses of the house is for the Sunday afternoon concert series in the drawing room, with tea following in the dining room. Today there was a lovely harpist, who played Renaissance dance music on a harp that is a replica of an original in the Museum of Fine Arts. Most special of all, she also played music of Regency Britain on a two-hundred-year-old Irish harp made by John Egan, a Dublin harp maker she is writing a book about.
I took the photo after the concert and tea as darkness descended on our first day of standard time after daylight saving time ended at 2:00 am. There is a magnificent red maple tree in the garden, just visible on the right. It has a huge canopy, and at the moment there is a large circle of red leaves on the ground around it.
What a beautiful New England home - how wonderful that it has been preserved and now is open to the community. And what a terrific use they've made of it. Perfect atmosphere for a small concert. Lovely shot of the home.
