The Importance of Being Furnished: Four Bachelors at Home

Historic New England’s newest exhibition explores the evolution of American interior design by spotlighting four historic homes - Beauport-Sleeper-McCann House, Codman Estate, Gibson House, Pendleton House – and their creators.

Opening June 21, The Importance of Being Furnished, examines the roles Ogden Codman Jr., Charles Hammond Gibson, Charles Leonard Pendleton, and Henry Davis Sleeper played in early twentieth-century preservation and interior design, highlighting an extraordinary range of furnishings, design work, and personal artifacts drawn from their homes.

The homes featured in the exhibition, all of which are now museums open to the public, include:

• Beauport, the Sleeper-McCann House (1907), in Gloucester, Massachusetts, the eclectic masterpiece of interior decorator Henry Davis Sleeper (1878-1934);
• Codman Estate (c. 1740) in Lincoln, Massachusetts, home to five generations of the Codman family and redecorated in its final incarnation by architect Ogden Codman, Jr. (1863-1951);
• Gibson House Museum (1860) in Boston’s Back Bay, a row house preserved by its final owner, writer Charles Hammond Gibson, Jr. (1874-1954);
• Pendleton House (1906) at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, built to replicate the Federal-era home of collector Charles Leonard Pendleton (1846-1904).

The Importance of Being Furnished: Four Bachelors at Home is on view from June 21 to October 27, 2024 at the Eustis Estate 1424 Canton Avenue, Milton, MA 02186. The Eustis Estate is open from Friday to Sunday, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. 617-994-6600. eustisestate@historicnewengland.org. historicnewengland.org.

All museum spaces that are open to the public are accessible. The museum is equipped with a lift for access to the second floor.