Rare chance to land Beacon Hill icon
Here's your chance to own a National Historic Landmark on Beacon Hill that was the home of former GE chief Jack Welch.
The 22,261-square-foot Greek Revival property at 40 Beacon St. was designed as one of two twin houses in 1821 by Alexander Parris, the famous Boston architect who designed Quincy Market. The storied home has hosted the wedding of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and was The Women's City Club of Boston from 1914 into the 1990s.
Pappas Enterprises acquired the property, sold off the twin 39 Beacon St., and converted 40 Beacon into five condos.
Welch and his wife, Suzy, rented Unit 2 from the early 2000s until 2008. After they left, the property was put up for sale but was withdrawn. Lender Anglo Irish Bank foreclosed on the property in 2012 and Boston's The Davis Cos. bought units 2-5 at the foreclosure auction for $4.4 million.
“Despite the ownership issues, the property itself has been kept in superb shape,” said Chris Sower, senior vice president of Colliers International, who is selling the 13 bedroom, 13 bathroom property for $20 million. To be precise, fourfifths of 40 Beacon is for sale, as an occupied ground and garden level condo is not included.
Sower is seeking either a buyer who wants to convert the property back to a single family or an investor/ developer who could create four condos on the property that would include 1,844 square feet of additional living space and nine spaces of city-approved underground parking.
The Davis Cos. has drawn up potential plans for four condos, including a 5,323-square-foot fivebedroom triplex unit on the third, fourth and a newly constructed fifth floors. The Greek Revival home's bowfront brick exterior and Doric column entryway, as well as its striking interior skylit circular staircase, are protected by its landmark status.
The home has an original first-floor ballroom with a service kitchen that hosted Longfellow's 1843 wedding to the daughter of the home's original owner, industrialist Nathaniel Appleton. The home's original detailing is exceptional, with custom woodwork including rosette window moldings, cherrywood doors and floor-toceiling mahogany hutches. The 12-foot-8-inch-high living spaces on the second floor, where Welch lived, have original diagonal-set hardwood flooring, carved plaster moldings, columns and ceiling medallions. A curved cherrywood pocket door separates the formal living and dining rooms, both of which have marble fireplace mantels and tall windows that bring in a lot of natural light.
The second-floor kitchen, redone in the 1990s, has a wall of windows leading out to a private 1,500-squarefoot outdoor terrace.
Six guest bedrooms off the third and fourth landings have custom-made curved doors.
The main house has a 1,400-square-foot private roof deck overlooking Boston Common that also offers panoramic views of the city.
40 Beacon's attached original carriage house is now a three-car garage with five floors of living space, including four bedrooms, a dance studio, a fitness room and wine cellar. A gated entrance from Walnut Street leads to the home's six outdoor parking spaces.
“I'd like to think of what we're doing is unmasking this great property,” Sower said. “It's all about what it could be.”