Otis House Museum

About Us:

Otis House is the last surviving mansion in Bowdoin Square in Boston's West End neighborhood. Charles Bulfinch designed the house for Harrison Gray Otis, a lawyer who was instrumental in developing nearby Beacon Hill, served in Congress, and was a mayor of Boston.

Otis House is the first of three houses Bulfinch designed for Harrison Gray Otis and his wife Sally Foster Otis. The house's design reflects the classical proportions and delicate detail of the Federal style.

Visitors learn about the Otis family's life in the Federal era and the later history of the house, when it served as a clinic and a middle-class boardinghouse. The restoration of Otis House and its brilliantly colored wallpapers, carpeting, and high-style furnishings, is based on meticulous historical and scientific research.