| Newell Boathouse | |
|---|---|
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| General information | |
| Type | Boathouse |
| Location | 801 Soldiers Field Rd.,Charles River,Allston,Boston,Massachusetts,United States |
| Coordinates | 42°22′11″N71°07′33″W / 42.3697°N 71.1258°W /42.3697; -71.1258 |
| Named for | Marshall Newell |
| Year built | 1900 |
| Owner | Harvard University |
| Technical details | |
| Material | Concrete, slate |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | Peabody and Stearns |
Newell Boathouse is a boathouse on theCharles River inBoston, Massachusetts, United States. Named for a popular Harvard athlete killed just a few years after graduation, is the primaryboathouse used byHarvard University's varsity men's rowing teams.[1] It stands on land subject to an unusualpeppercorn lease agreement between Harvard and theCommonwealth of Massachusetts.[2][3]
Called "the elder statesman amongCharles River boathouses,"[4] Newell Boathouse is named for 1894Harvard College graduateMarshall Newell, a varsity rower andAll-American football player in all four of his undergraduate years, "beloved by all those who knew him" and nicknamed "Ma" for the guidance he gave younger athletes.[5] After Newell was killed in 1897,[6] $2,000 was raised for a boathouse in his memory.[5]
Built in 1900 on the south side of the Charles to a design byPeabody and Stearns (architectRobert Peabody having been rowing captain as a Harvard undergraduate),[1] Newell Boathouse is constructed of concrete, with a slate façade and roof. It was Harvard's first permanent boathouse,[7] replacing a series of wooden boathouses in the area.[8] In addition to storage forracing shells, the building provides locker rooms, meeting and training rooms, and rowing tanks and other practice equipment.[4] Architectural historian Bainbridge Bunting wrote that its "complex profile ... closely resembling that ofCarey Cage reflected in the Charles in the early morning, has made it a landmark on the river."[7]
The "prime riverfront space" upon which Newell Boathouse stands belongs to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In addition to having given the Commonwealth forty-six acres of land downriver, Harvard pays $1 per year for the right to maintain a boathouse on the site, under a lease running one thousand years, at the end of which time Harvard has the option to renew the lease for a further thousand years[3]—an example of apeppercorn lease amounting to "virtual freehold."[2]
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42°22′11″N71°07′33″W / 42.3697°N 71.1258°W /42.3697; -71.1258
