Revere Beach Reservation

The story

Written by AI from this property's National Register nomination and the record above; every sentence is checked against its sources before it appears here. Corrections: privacy@treealive.com

Revere Beach Reservation is a park reservation along Revere Beach Boulevard, from Eliot Circle to Northern Circle in Revere, Suffolk County. Its buildings, built between 1896 and 1906, mix Italian Renaissance, Renaissance Revival and Colonial Revival styles, and it is designated a National Historic Landmark.

Why it's listed

It was listed under criteria A and C, with national-level significance in landscape architecture and community planning and development. Its period of significance runs from 1895 to 1905, anchored by architect Charles Eliot's death in 1897 and the 1905 construction of shelters to architect William D. Austin's design.

Physical character

Its buildings combine brick and wood-shingle walls on granite and poured-concrete foundations, roofed in terra cotta tile, dark gray slate and copper. The reservation includes an octagonal shelter, a 62-foot tower, bicycle sheds for 1,225 bicycles, a hipped roof, a dome-shaped cupola, three arched doorways, and a rear wing added to the police station.

Historical context

The reservation's bathhouse burned in 1898 and was rebuilt to its original design in 1899 with an added iron roof, then was demolished in 1962 and replaced with a modern facility. The writer H. G. Wells visited the beach in 1905, and published The Future in America the following year.