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Yesterday, we visited the Gibson House Museum in the Back Bay neighbrhood in Boston. This is a true gem, very, very unique here in the US.

The house is a 6-storey brownstone built in 1860, soon after the Back Bay area was created in Boston by landfill for new land for housing. What is unique about it is:

1) It remained in the same family (3 generations). Nothing has been sold, altered, redone in the last 150 years.
2) It is one of the few brownstones that remain as a whole (10,000 sq ft), rather than chopped up into multiple condos/apts given how pricey that area is (1br/1ba, 600 sq ft apt next door goes for 1/2 a million).
3) The interior is preserved as it was in the Victorian era. Since the house remained in the same family, everything (furniture, silverware, paintings etc) in the house is original.

The house/museum can only be visited by guided tours only. Our group had 8 people, and we were free to wander around in each room. We could walk around furniture, look at pictures close-up.

The third generation, Charles Gibson Jr, lived here until 1950s. He never married and had no children. Years before he died, he had decided to turn this house into a museum upon his death, so he spent countless hours cataloging every item in the house and writing down descriptions of where things are. He wanted to save this house as a piece of Victorian history in this modern world.

Some of the interesting things we saw were high-end wallpaper. The original owner was not wealthy enough to use silk or velvet wall coverings, so she used expensive wallpaper which were made to look like the real thing.

In one of the bedrooms was a 13-piece faux bamboo bedroom set. The furniture is actually made of bird's eye maple, but carved to look like bamboo, due to the japonaise fever of that time.

A very worthwhile visit if you happen to come to Boston!

A couple of other historic houses in Boston:
Otis House Museum c 1796
Nichols House Museum c 1804

I will report back when I get around to visit these two!

CC- make sure you check the opening days and tour times of Gibson House, as they are a bit limited. Only 1 staff person works there and the tour starts promptly. She locks the front door of the museum as soon as the tour starts, so any latecomers will have to wait for the next tour outside the door until the current tour ends (45 mins).

Your mom might enjoy the Nichols Museum too and it's just right over on Beacon Hill.

BTW, after our visit to Gibson House, we walked along Beacon Street towards the State House, and we saw plenty of purple-tinged windows among those houses on Beacon Street. These are original windows which have turned light purple due to Manganese in the glass - it gets oxidized after exposure to UV for decades, and turns purple. They are a lovely sight, and I'm kicking myself for not taking some photos of them as I did have my camera with me.