Boston houses hold history. From the city’s skinniest house (measuring only 10 feet wide and 30 feet deep) to the Beacon Hill homes of legendary American authors, a surplus of the homes still standing date back centuries and have many stories to tell.
History of The Dutch House
The Dutch House in Brookline has a sweet one. The four-story whimsical brick building was originally built as “Dutch Cocoa House” by the Van Houten Cocoa Company for the Columbian Exposition 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago to celebrate their brand’s expansion west. The commissioned Dutch House served as a space for fair goers to sample Van Houten chocolates and hot cocoa.
Van Houten Cocoa Company, a father-and-son operation founded in 1828, innovated the less bitter cocoa method, known as Dutch process chocolate, which inspired the production process for modern chocolate.
From Chicago to Brookline
Charles Brooks Appleton, a Brookline resident who was visiting the fair saw the house, fell in love, and purchased it in Chicago. That left no other option than to dismantle the house, brick-by-brick, and door and window, transport all the materials 980 miles to Massachusetts, and rebuild the home in Brookline.
What came first, the chicken or the egg?
In this case, the road the Dutch Cocoa House now sits on, inherited the name as Brookline’s Netherlands Street after the house came to Brookline. Built by the Dutch, and inspired by Franeker City Hall built in the Netherlands in 1591, Brookline’s Dutch Cocoa House serves as one of America’s prime examples of Dutch High Renaissance architecture. In 1986 Brookline’s Dutch House made the National Register of Historic Places.
Fittingly, find The Dutch House, Brookline at 20 Netherlands Street. The house now serves as a private residence, so interior tours are impermissible, however, you can admire the exterior just like Appleton did 132 years ago. And if you’re really curious, Redfin has a few pics of the interior. Just note, it’s not for sale!