PEABODY & STEARNS, architects of Boston, Mass. and a leading American firm of architects from 1870 to 1917. The founding partners consisted of Robert Swain Peabody (1845-1917) and John Goddard Stearns Jr. (1843-1917). Formed in 1870, their office was remarkably successful over the next four decades, and they can be credited with nearly 1,000 commissions for institutional, ecclesiastical, commercial, residential and educational buildings in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York State, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and as far west as Illinois and Missouri. Their only built work yet identified in Canada was built in Niagara Falls, Ontario in 1904-06.
Robert S. Peabody was born in New Bedford, Mass. on 22 February 1845 and later graduated from Harvard College in 1866. He briefly trained with Gridley J.F. Bryant, then joined the office of Henry Van Brunt. One of the staff who he met there was John Stearns, with whom he was to later form a partnership in 1870. Peabody left Boston in 1867 and moved to Paris, France to study at the Ecole des Beaux Arts (biog. for Peabody in A. Delaire, Les Architectes Eleves de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, 1907, 367). He studied in the Atelier of Pierre G.H. Daumet, then returned to Boston in the spring of 1870, and started the new partnership with his Boston colleague J.G. Stearns. Peabody later died on 24 September 1917 at Peach's Point, Mass., just one week after the death of his business partner J.G. Stearns (obituary & port. for Peabody in Boston Globe, 24 September 1917, 12; obit. Journal of the American Inst. of Architects [Washington], v, Sept. 1917, 517).
John G. Stearns was born in New York City on 18 May 1843 and he studied at Harvard College where he obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering, then entered the office of Ware & Van Brunt, prominent architects in Boston, in 1863 and continued to work there until 1870. He and Robert Peabody formed a partnership in that year, but Stearns played a background role in the office as construction and field supervisor for many architectural projects, leaving much of the design work in the hands of Peabody. Stearns died in Duxbury, Mass. on 16 September 1917, just one week before the death of his business partner Robert Peabody (obituary for Stearns in Boston Globe, 17 September 1917, 5; obit. Journal of the American Inst. of Architects [Washington], v, Sept. 1917, 517; obit. American Architect [New York], cxii, Sept. 1917, 272)
The Fine Arts Dept. of the Boston Public Library holds an extensive collection of original architectural drawings by Peabody & Stearns, including projects in Canada. A detailed biography and list of works by the firm was published in 2010 in the monograph by Annie Robinson called Peabody & Stearns: Country Houses & Seaside Cottages, p. 18-31. A detailed article on the work by this firm entitled “ The Peabody Touch: Peabody & Stearns of Boston 1870-1917”, written by Wheton A. Holden was published in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians [USA], Vol3. 2, No. 2, May 1973, pp. 114-31. A biography and dated list of works by the firm was published in the MacMillan Encyclopedia of Architects, 1982, Vol. 3, 380-82. A biography and illustration of several projects by Peabody, was prepared by James O'Gorman and published in the 1989 exhibition catalogue entitled On The Boards - Drawings by Nineteenth Century Boston Architects, pages 120-25.
MONTREAL, QUE., Liverpool, London & Globe Insurance Building, St. James Street at Place d'Armes, a commission awarded in a competition to local architects Hutchison & Wood, 1902, an 8 storey commercial office block (Montreal Daily Star, 9 Jan. 1902, 10; C.R., xii, 15 Jan. 1902, 2). The Boston Public Library holds a set of 10-12 drawings for this project, but an examination of the drawings shows that only the stamp of “Hutchison & Wood, Architects” appears in the title block. This indicates that Peabody & Stearns were acting merely as the professional advisors and judges of this invited competition among Montreal architects, and that they recommended the winning design by Hutchison & Wood (inf. Evelyn Lannon, Arts Dept., Boston Public Library).
NIAGARA FALLS, ONT., Clifton Hotel, on Clifton Hill at River Road, 1904-06; burned 31 January 1932, and now the site of the Oakes Garden Theatre (Niagara Falls Review, 2 June 1978). This hotel by Peabody & Stearns was built to replace the old Clifton House Hotel which burned on 25 June 1898.