The Stephen Phillips House, also known as the Nathaniel West House, is a historic Federal-style house on Chestnut Street in Salem, Massachusetts.
Built in 1821, it is a three-story clapboarded house with a slate hipped roof. The house also features a two-and-a-half-story rear ell adjoining a three-story ell and a center entry portico with a paneled door and fluted Ionic columns. It is considered the most ornate wooden house of its period on Chestnut Street.
The house features four rooms that were once sections of an early 19th-century house at Oak Hill in Peabody, Massachusetts, that was designed by architect Samuel McIntire.
In 1819, Nathaniel West inherited one-third of that house in Peabody and decided to move his third, which consisted of the four rooms, to Salem. The rooms were moved in two sections on wheels by Nathaniel West Sr. and incorporated into this house on Chestnut Street.
The West family lived in the house until 1836, after which it had many owners, including Charles Sanders, Frederick Howes, William B. Pierce, William Pickman, Nathaniel West Jr., John H. Silsbee, and Thomas P. Swatt.
In 1836, Tabitha Ward purchased the house for $7,000 and ran it as a boarding house and school until 1874. In 1874, local merchant William G. Webb purchased the house and owned it until 1896.
From 1896 to 1903, naval architect and mayor of Salem, David Mason Little, owned the house. From 1903 to 1910, the house was owned by a woman named Mrs. King.
In 1911, Stephen W. Phillips purchased the house and lived there until his death in 1955. During Phillips’ ownership, he commissioned architect William Rantoul to make a number of Colonial Revival-style alterations to the interior and exterior of the house.
After Stephen W. Phillip’s son, also named Stephen, died in 1971, his widow, Betty, established the Stephen Phillips Memorial Charitable Trust for Historic Preservation, which opened the house to the public as a museum in 1973.
In 2006, Historic New England Inc acquired the Stephen Phillips House from the trust. The house is still a historic house museum and is the only mansion on Chestnut Street open to the public for tours.
Sources:
Regalbuto, Robert J. New England House Museums. Countryman Press, 2018.
“Phillips House.” Historic New England INC, historicnewengland.org/property/phillips-house/
“Historic Building Detail: SAL.733 West, Nathaniel House.” MACRIS, mhc-macris.net/details?mhcid=SAL.733