Reinterpreting THE PAST

Saved from demolition, the once-grand Myles Standish Hotel revived by architect Patrick Ahearn is now a family home.

- Janice Randall Rohlf

Good architects design nice buildings. Better architects tap into their vision and imagination. Curious, they delve beyond the nuts and bolts of a project, seeking not only to create or recreate a house but also to consider the intangible elements that endow a structure with a personality all its own. In the case of renovating an old structure with a prominent past, the challenge is to weave its history into its rejuvenation, as architect Patrick Ahearn did with the Myles Standish Hotel when he transformed the late 19thcentury structure in Duxbury, Massachusetts, a quintessential coastal town, into a grande dame seaside estate.

For Ahearn, a widely recognized classical architect who focuses on historically inspired residences in New England, this was an "opportunity to hold hands with history while moving toward the future." His clients lived in a relatively new Shingle Style house next door to the hotel and bought the historic property as a precaution against any potential spec builders. They approached Ahearn to reimagine the hotel as a private residence, but not for themselves. "About halfway through the process," says Ahearn, "they fell in love with it so much they sold their house and moved into this one instead."

In its heyday, the Myles Standish Hotel was a destination for well-heeled guests from Boston and New York. There were elegant balls and spirited regattas. The resort bottled its own ginger ale and seltzers, using water from a natural spring on the site touted for its healing qualities. But time and a serious fire diminished the hotel, whose final summer season was in 1914. By the time Ahearn undertook the project, it was essentially only half a hotel, one of two brothers having moved the other half off the property.