Boston Common - Niche Media - A side of Boston that's anything but common.
Issue link: http://digital.greengale.com/i/121906
A grand elevator rises three floors through the center of RH Boston, The Gallery at the Historic Museum of Natural History. Haute Property NEWS, STARS, AND TRENDS IN REAL ESTATE a landmark, reimagined PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF RESTORATION HARDWARE RESTORATION HARDWARE LIVES UP TO ITS NAME BY RETURNING A BACK BAY ARCHITECTURAL TREASURE TO ITS ORIGINAL GRANDEUR. BY VICTORIA VEILLEUX D uring an unexpected layover in Boston more than 20 years ago, Gary Friedman, creator, curator, and now chairman emeritus of Restoration Hardware, made a quick stop into what was then Louis Boston, at 234 Berkeley Street, to buy a dress shirt. "I'd never seen such a beautiful work of architecture housing a retail store," he recalls of the French Academic façade, designed by famed architect William Gibbons Preston. So when Friedman learned in 2011 that the building was vacant, he jumped on a plane the very next day to explore the possibility of turning the address into his company's grandest exhibition of luxury home goods. With a philosophy of "re-imagineering" the past, Restoration Hardware seemed predestined for this historic landmark. Originally built as the New England Museum of Natural History in 1863, it was the second public building constructed in the Back Bay (after the Arlington Street Church), housing the Boston Society of Natural History's exotic collections from around the world—from dinosaur bones and tiger specimens to war clubs and minerals. In 1947 the museum, renamed the Museum of Science, began vacating the building for a new space along the Charles River, and 234 Berkeley Street became home to the department store Bonwit Teller, followed by Louis in continued on page 118 BOSTONCOMMON-MAGAZINE.COM 117-120_BC_HP_Opener_LATESPRING_13.indd 117 117 4/10/13 12:07 PM