"The Fitz Residence blends Emerson's exemplary design with this symphony of integrated, beautifully crafted architectural elements."

~ article reprinted from Summer Cottages of the White Mountains

Positioned slightly to the east of the Wiggelsworth cottage on the gradual slope of Thorn Hill, the Fitz Cottage enjoys the same magnificent view of the distant high peaks of the White Mountains, The Wildcat and Glen Ellen river valleys below, and the adjacent hills. Surrounded in part by forest growth today, it once offered completely unobstructed vistas in all directions. Early photographs of this imposing shingle-style house depict a building of outstanding architectural merit, thoughtfully conceived, meticulously assembled, and embellished with a fascinating profusion of period details. Fortunately, it has passed to the current era little altered, and in an excellent state of preservation, allowing us still to view on of the White Mountain region's most important examples of Late Victorian domestic architecture.

The sophisticated and imaginative design of the Fitz Cottage strongly suggests that it was planned by a major architect or architectural firm. But architectural drawings and related records, which could provide easy identification, apparently no longer survive. A recent search of the Bethlehem tourist weekly, the White Mountain Echo, revealed a citation attributing the design of the "handsome residence of Mr. W.S. Fitz" in Jackson "Mr W.R. Emerson, the Boston architect". This exciting discovery adds another documented commission to the growing list of Emerson's work, which architectural historians have compiled in recent years. In Jackson, the Fitz Cottage joins the company of the Shapleigh House, "Maple Knoll" (1896-97) and the public library (1900-1901), both constructed from Emerson plans.

Until the late 1960's, William Ralph Emerson (1833-1917) was unrecognized as a significant contributor to the development of American residential architecture- despite the fact that his career was remarkably productive, spanning more than half a century, and including at least 60 known projects. One of his recent biographers considers him to be "one of the earliest and finest designers of shingle-style country and suburban houses" after the late 1870's - the Fitz Cottage and "Maple Knoll" alone lend strong support to that claim. Born in Illinois, Emerson (a distant cousin of Ralph Waldo Emerson) spent his boyhood living in Kennebunk, Maine, and Boston, where he attended public schools. Here his formal education stopped, unlike increasing numbers of architects of his time, who went on to college and then received architectural training. Essentially self-taught in his trade, he initially worked with Jonathan Preston, a Boston architect-builder, beginning in 1854, and formed a partnership with him from 1857 to 1861. He was a charter member of the Boston Society of Architects, and often lectured at meetings on the adaptability of American Colonial design elements for contemporary New England architecture. Like many architects focusing primarily on residential work, Emerson developed networks of clients, and concentrations of houses once existed in Milton, MA (the home of his second wife, Sylvia Watson), and the resort communities of the Massachusettes North Shore and Mount Desert Island, ME. He was regarded by his professional colleagues as an extraordinarily gifted and creative free spirit, which is particularly reflected in his summer cottages.

The connection between Emerson and his client, Walter Scott Fitz (1838-1900) is unknown; perhaps their paths crossed in the Boston area, where both resided. Biological data concerning Fitz is extremely sparse, and the details of his youth and education are a mystery. A family history, however, discloses that he prospered in the Boston-based China trade, and made donations of Chinese art to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. In 1888 he married Henrietta Goddard (Wigglesworth) Holmes (it was her second marriage) the sister of Edward Wigglesworth of Boston. Apparently, Fitz and Wigglesworth knew each other earlier, and, sharing a love for and commitment to the New Hampshire White Mountains, negotiated a joint land purchase in Jackson in 1887. The house was constructed on this land the following year. Fitz, usually in partnership with his brother-in-law Wigglesworth, continued to acquire tracts in Jackson until 1893. The properties on which the two houses and outbuildings are located have long been known as the 'Fitz-Wigglesworth Estate', though they were sold by the original families long ago.

With it's longitudinal axis running east and west, the Fitz Cottage, as is characteristic of the Shingle Style, possesses totally contrasting asymmetrical principal elevations. Reached by a circular gravel drive enclosing a low hummock, the front main (south) facade is marked by an active combination of roof forms (main gambrel, closed gable pavilion, conical tower); a recessed front entrance behind a double facade; a second-story four-sided angular window bay topped by a hipped-roof dormer; a two-story attached cylindrical tower; varied fenestration; and a tall, narrow stairway light with a paneled base and arched top displaying a molded archivolt and keystone. The rear (north) elevation is distinguished by projecting bays (three-sided), gabled dormer and pavilion roofs, tall brick chimneys piercing the main gable roof plane, and fenestration similar to that of the main facade, with the exception of the molded elliptical and arch-topped gable windows with keystones (these provide a hint of the colonial revival). Across the west end of the house, really a cross-gabled wing, there is a one-story, balustraded, square-columned veranda terminating in a semi-circular projection, angled off the north-west corner. At the east end of the building is a two-story, gable roof service wind. Less obvious but charming details of the cottage include patterned shingling (square-butt, diamond, fish-scale, engrailed) on the wall surfaces, second-story cantilevered joists, corbelled with square ends, ogee crown molding in the gables, and matched and beaded veranda ceiling boards. The Fitz Residence blends Emerson's exemplary design with this symphony of integrated, beautifully crafted architectural elements.