100 Robert Treat Paine Drive
Waltham, MA 02453
Phone: 781-314-3290
http://stonehurstwaltham.org/
Stonehurst is also known as the Robert Treat Paine Estate. Paine (1835–1910), whose great-grandfather was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was a successful Boston lawyer and an investor. He was also a philanthropist, a social reformer, and an advocate for better housing for low- and middle-income people.
Paine was married to Lydia Lyman Paine (1837–1897). Her parents owned the Lyman Estate (1793), which neighbors Stonehurst. When Robert and Lydia wed, they were given a portion of the Lyman Estate on which to build their summer home. Similar gifts were made to other family members. The intent was to form a Lyman family summer compound. Robert and Lydia built a wooden Second Empire house on the site in 1866. After seven children were born, the house was thought to be too small for their needs, and so it was replaced with the present mansion in 1885. They named the estate Stonehurst: The land has many stones, both large and small, and “hurst” is an Old English word for a hill with woods.
Robert had been chairman of the building committee for Trinity Church Copley Square, which was designed in 1872 by Henry Hobson Richardson (1838–1886). Familiar with Richardson’s work, Paine hired him to design this Shingle Style house. Its interior has an open plan and is fitted with finely carved woodwork. Both Richardson and the landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted (1822–1903) (see page 64) were frequent collaborators on projects, and they also worked together here. In fact, this was their only residential joint work.
After Robert and Lydia died, their eldest son, also named Robert Treat Paine (1866–1961), continued to live here. He died at the age of ninety-six. A nephew, Theodore Lyman Storer, donated the 109-acre estate to the City of Waltham in 1974 to be used as a public park. Another Olmsted masterpiece, the park has meadows, woods, rocky outcrops, and trails including the Western Greenway Trail.
The neighboring Lyman Estate (also known as The Vale) is a property of Historic New England, which opens the house for tours (www.historicnewengland.org).