The Prospect Hill Monument, also occasionally called the Prospect Hill Tower is a stone structure in Somerville, Massachusetts. It is a block away from the heart of Union Square (Somerville), a neighborhood in Somerville. Its name is formally the Prospect Hill Memorial Flag Tower and Observatory.
The tower is four stories tall and built out of iron and stone. The lower deck, outside of the first floor is open to the public and offers a panoramic view of Boston, Somerville, and Cambridge. At various points the city of Somerville has offered tours of the tower, though these are currently closed due to upcoming construction.
History
The tower is located at the top of Prospect Hill, which was the site of American fortifications during the Revolutionary war and also served as a training facility during the Civil War. The monument itself was designed by Ernest W. Bailey and built in 1904. It has been refurbished several times since in order to preserve its structural soundness. As of August 28, 2020, it reopened after renovation. It is closed now due to COVID-19.
Flag
The monument flies the Grand Union Flag, a precursor to the American flag. During the Revolutionary War, George Washington reportedly hoisted the Grand Union Flag himself over the very land the tower now sits atop. Some sources cite this as the first time that any American flag was raised. Historical research has corroborated this story.

Prospect Hill Tower

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The Boston University Castle (or BU Castle or simply "The Castle") is a Tudor Revival-style mansion owned by Boston University on Bay State Road. The school typically uses it for receptions or concerts, but also rents out The Castle to cater events and special occasions.
Architecture
The building was cited by architectural historian Bainbridge Bunting in his Houses of Boston's Back Bay as displaying “the most convincing medieval effect of the area.”
According to Boston University, the building's founder, William Lindsey, would have been pleased by this description. Lindsey had derived his inspiration for the Castle from the great manor houses of Tudor England. "The imposing style of these medieval mansions held a special allure for Lindsey, who, besides being a successful businessman, was also a poet and playwright. His writings, such as The Severed Mantle: A romance of medieval Provence and The Red Wine of Roussillon, a blank-verse drama set in France during the Middle Ages, reveal the same fascination with the antique and the romantic that pervades the design of the Castle."
History
The Castle was originally built as a residence for William Lindsey (1858–1922), a prominent Boston businessman who made his fortune with a patented cartridge belt the British Army used during the Boer War. Plans were drawn up in 1904 and construction was completed in 1915 at a cost of more than $500,000.
Shortly after the building's completion, Lindsey's eldest daughter was married in the mansion, though she and her groom would later be killed while on their honeymoon, aboard the ill-fated Lusitania after the ship was torpedoed by a German submarine just off the coast of County Cork. The grief-stricken Lindsey later constructed the magnificent Leslie Lindsey Memorial Chapel in Emmanuel Church on Newbury Street in his daughter's memory.
In 1926, Oakes Ames purchased the Castle from Lindsey's widow. He, University Trustee Dr. William E. Chenery and Chenery's wife donated the mansion to Boston University in 1939. From then until 1967, the Castle was used as the home of Boston University's presidents.
In 2007, the Castle was a filming location for the Kevin Spacey movie 21, and in 2016, for Ghostbusters.
BU Pub
In the basement of the BU Castle is the BU Pub, an English-style pub serving drinks and sandwiches. The Castle is the only Boston University-operated drinking establishment on campus. It is open only to faculty, staff, alumni, students, and invited guests, and is closed on weekends. The Pub sometimes has live music on Thursdays, with performances mostly from BU students. Popular house activities are the Knight's and Lord's Quests. In the Knight's Quest, students must drink 50 different types of beer that the pub offers. The accomplishment culminates in a Knighting Ceremony where the new Knights are given different nicknames by friends for a mug that they can use while at the pub. The Lord's Quest is similar except it involves 60 mixed drinks, and after the ceremony the new Lord's name is engraved on a plaque. For reasons that are not entirely clear, the plaque has not been updated for over two years. In September 2008, the BU Pub canceled the Lord's Quest, so now only the Knight's Quest remains.

Boston University Castle

The Armory of the First Corps of Cadets is a historic armory at 97–105 Arlington Street and 130 Columbus Avenue in Boston, Massachusetts. The four-story granite structure was designed by William Gibbons Preston and built beginning in 1891 and finished in 1897. Due to political unrest during the period, the building was designed to withstand mob violence. Its most prominent feature is its six-story tower. It is built in the Romanesque Revival style. The buildings staircases are built by the Guastavino system, as are some tower vaults.
In the late 1960s, the University of Massachusetts Boston leased the building and converted it into the university's first library. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 and designated as a Boston Landmark by the Boston Landmarks Commission in 1977. It was known as the Park Plaza Castle and owned by the adjacent Boston Park Plaza, which used it as a banquet facility up until 2014. Currently managed by another company, the venue space is now referred to as the "Castle at Park Plaza."
http://www.en.wikipedia.org
The Saunders Castle at Park Plaza is a unique Special Event, Meeting, Conference and Trade Show venue. The Castle is ideally located in Boston's Back Bay on Columbus Avenue and Arlington Street in one of Boston's more historic neighborhoods, yet conveniently located to the city's largest hotels and convention centers.
With 14,642 square feet of event space, this expansive one room venue is spacious and versatile, perfect for special events, meetings, exhibits, galas, product launches, receptions, social events and tradeshows.
Soaring ceiling height offers an open feel to the space with existing dimmable lighting above. Extensive rigging points throughout, allow hanging of truss and lighting, audio or décor. Brick and wrought iron detail through the venue add to the historical look and feel of the space while also providing a blank slate for design and branding.
The Armory was planned, constructed and financed by the First Corps of Cadets, a Massachusetts military organization established in 1741. The Armory is the only remaining High Victorian armory in the City of Boston and a designated National Historic Landmark. The Castle has hosted some of Boston's most exclusive events throughout the years.
http://www.castleboston.com/

Armory of the First Corps of Cadets

Lord's Castle is a historic house at 211 Hammond Street in Waltham, Massachusetts.
Rufus Lord built the home in 1886 on property purchased from Oel Farnsworth. Lord, who owned a prominent construction business in Waltham, was known for his work on the Company F State Armory at Sharon and Curtis Streets.
The 2+1⁄2-story masonry house was built as a private residence inspired by Norman castles. Its most prominent feature is a large three-story circular tower with extensive corbelling and crenellations, details that are repeated on the main block of the house. It reportedly took Lord ten years to complete.
The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.

Lord's Castle

The Castle, also known as Usen Castle, is a historic building at 415 South Street in Waltham, Massachusetts. The Medieval style structure, built in the style of a Norman castle in 1928, stands on the campus of Brandeis University, where it serves as a dormitory. The building, the design of which is unlike any other on the campus or in the city, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
Description and history
Usen Castle is located atop Boston Rock, one of the highest points on the Brandeis campus. It consists of a series of six sections, connected to form an enclosed courtyard. Its exterior, apparently inspired by Lismore Castle in Ireland, features a wide variety of turrets, towers, crenellations, and pinnacles. A variety of unusual materials were used in its construction, including colored concrete and ceramic inlays. The interior retains Gothic features, giving the current student residential users a distinctive feel not found in other residences on the campus.
The Castle was built in 1928 by Dr. John Hall Smith, founder of the Middlesex College of Medicine and Surgery, on whose campus it stood until the school closed in 1945. The campus and school charter were acquired by the founders of Brandeis. The building at first housed administrative offices as well as a dormitory and dining hall, but was converted to exclusively residential use in the 1950s. The building is one of two to survive on the campus from its Middlesex College days, and is a sharp contrast to the otherwise modern buildings there.
In summer 2017, after much of the building was condemned as unsafe by the city of Waltham, the University demolished Castle Towers C, D and E, and Schwartz Castle to make way for the new Skyline residence hall. Castle Towers A and B remain as student residences.

Usen Castle

The Quincy Masonic Temple was a historic Masonic temple at 1170 Hancock Street, Quincy, Massachusetts. It was built in 1926 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1989. The building was home to three "Blue" Masonic Lodges, two Appendant Bodies: York Rite, Grotto, and two Youth Groups: DeMolay and Rainbow.
Rural Lodge was founded in 1801. Macedonian Lodge was founded in 1892. Milton Lodge was founded in 1922.
Architectural significance
The Quincy Masonic Temple was an outstanding example of a Neoclassical building. It had three floors, which included a theater/ballroom, three separate lodge rooms, elaborate ante-rooms, and an oak-paneled library.
The imposing main entrance is set on a high basement of regular ashlar blocks, with a flat roof hidden by a shaped parapet. Dominating the facade is a projecting pavilion composed of four giant Ionic columns in antis supporting an architrave replete with Masonic symbols. A large cascade of steps leading up to the main entrance is flanked by metal tripod tables each on a base decorated with a griffin on a terracotta plaque. The main lobby was remarkable for its Egyptian styling, featuring battered entranceways, papyrus ornaments and sphinxes. This lead via two sets of doors to the large Main Lodge room, which was used for Rural Lodge meetings and other large events, and featured neoclassical furniture and furnishings and a classical landscape fresco signed by the artist, Carroll Bill.
The architects, J. Williams Beal, Sons, designed other nearby landmark buildings in downtown Quincy, including the Art Deco Granite Trust, The Patriot Ledger Building and the neo-Gothic Bethany Congregational Church which is adjacent to the Richardson Thomas Crane Public Library. The organ was a regularly used and fully working EM Skinner opus 661 of 1927, with 470 pipes.
The building was infrequently open to the public, but visitors were invited to see the building interior at two annual open houses.
The building was heavily damaged during a 4-alarm fire which occurred on September 30, 2013 after insulation caught fire while employees were working on a basement heat line. Most of the structure's interior and contents were destroyed, but the building's Longleaf Pine and Douglas Fir joists were able to be salvaged and recycled into flooring. The joist lumber was originally purchased from the Geo. McQuesten Company of Boston.Only the front façade of the building remains. It is hoped the entrance and facade will be preserved and incorporated into any future redevelopment of the site.

Masonic Temple

Herreshoff Castle, formerly known as Castle Brattahlid, is an unusual residence located at 2 Crocker Park, Marblehead, Massachusetts. As of 2006, the owners have offered the carriage house as a bed-and-breakfast. The great room has not been part of the rental, but guests are typically offered a tour of it – and the rest of the castle.
History
Description, in 1927
The main building, features, on the ground floor, a cook room, eating room, and pantry. The main room is above it, on the second floor, 34 by 26 feet (10.4 m × 7.9 m), with a massive fireplace and entrance from Crocker Park, named after Uriel Crocker (1796–1887), who donated a large portion of the land. The park was originally known as Bartoll's Head. Stairs of oaken planks bolted onto a chain lead to another room of an entirely different period of architecture, 34 by 16 feet (10.4 m × 4.9 m), with a high domed ceiling – also with a large fireplace, slightly smaller than the one in the main room.
The so-called Tower Building is two stories. The lower floor is for social purposes, the upper, for a painting studio. The ceiling of the upper is open, to the apex of the copper roof, with oak beams exposed. The ceiling is 21 feet (6.4 m) high. Within the walls is a secret stairway. There is also a small dungeon.
A stone stairway on the exterior leads to the main room. The windows are Gothic, small, but provide ample light. The doors are of solid oak planks, bolted together with half-inch steel rods.
View
From the flat roof, the panoramic view extends from Boston Light on the south, to the Magnolia shore on the north, overlooking Marblehead Neck and the entire harbor.
Provenance
Ballard
The castle was completed June 1927 by Marblehead artist Waldo Ballard (né Waldo Peter Ballard; 1873–1958) and his wife, Joan Ballard (née Joanna McCoy; 1873–1958), who stated that they based their design on Erik the Red's castle at Brattahlíð in Greenland, although the structure is Gothic in nature and does not resemble buildings of the type that would have been constructed at Brattahlíð during the era of Erik the Red. It is said that Ballard painted an oriental rug design on the castle's great room floor, based on an actual carpet in the nearby Jeremiah Lee Mansion.
Herreshoff
In 1945 the Ballards sold the castle to L. Francis Herreshoff (1890–1972), son of noted yacht designer Nathanael Greene Herreshoff (1848–1938) and acclaimed yacht designer in his own right. Herreshoff, in 1926, had gone into business for himself as a yacht designer in Marblehead.
Vaughn
After Herreshoff's death, Muriel M. Vaughn (née Muriel Elizabeth Miller; 1915–1990) occupied the castle. Muriel had been Herreshoff's secretary. According to her biography by the Mystic Seaport Museum, L. Francis Herreshoff had designated her as executrix and sole beneficiary of his estate. Vaughn moved into the Castle and continued to operate his yacht design business. She collected his writings into two books, Sensible Cruising Designs (1973) and An L. Francis Herreshoff Reader (1978).
Vaughn was the widow of Robert Lincoln Vaughn (1908–1958), who, from 1951 to 1953, had been an executive officer at the Central Torpedo Office in Newport, Rhode Island. He was a graduate of Phillips Exeter (1927), Harvard College (1931), and Harvard Business School (1933). He died in 1958 from complications following an appendectomy. The Central Torpedo Office was an outgrowth of the Naval Torpedo Station, founded in 1869 on Goat Island. Muriel Vaughn, in 1936, was one of 6 women in a class of 67 graduates of the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy.
After Muriel died, Elizabeth Vaughn (born 1946), her daughter, inherited the estate, sold the Herreshoff Castle, but carried on some unfinished curation of Herreshoff's work.
Rubino
Michael Horton Rubino, EdD, JD, and his wife, Christina (née Pranker), acquired the Herreshoff Castle in 1990. Rubino was born in Marblehead.