Joseph Everett Chandler, 1864-1945

Joseph Everett Chandler, a trained antiquarian and preservationist, was a champion of Colonial Revival / Restoration styles, and a Mayflower descendent.

Joseph Everett Chandler, landscape architect, antiquarian and preservationist, was a champion of Colonial Restoration, most often referred to as the Colonial Revival style. He believed architectural forms demonstrated values of their builders, and that a culture could not survive without preserving reminders of its origins and character.

Chandler wrote The Colonial Architecture of Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia (1892) and The Colonial House (1916), thought by many in this field to be a definitive work on the subject of colonial houses. He worked predominantly in MA and especially the Boston area.

Chandler believed that a culture could not survive without preserving reminders of its origins and character. He also appreciated the importance of setting, and observed that buildings were connected to their neighborhood history and should not be moved for the sake of preservation. Chandler's contemporaries acknowledged him as an architect who combined an appreciation of the artistry of pre-industrial construction with a knowledge of archeology.

The following projects brought both praise and criticism to Chandler:

• Old (MA) State House (Boston, 1907);
• Paul Revere House (Boston, 1906);
• Old Corner Book Store (Boston, n.d.);
• Rebecca Nurse House (Danvers, 1909);
• House of Seven Gables (Salem, 1917)
• Sargent House Museum (Gloucester, 1917-1919)
• Stevens-Coolidge Place (North Andover, 1914 -1918) and
• Reproduction with George Francis Dow of "Salem 1630 - Pioneer Village" - Salem’s living-history museum (Salem, 1930) - that commemorates the arrival of John Winthrop and the Puritans.

©Text by Georgene A. Bramlage. 2007. Reproduction without permission prohibited.