Royal Barry Wills

Our love letter to the famed Boston architect

Many of the houses we work with are historic – there’s the 1899 Colonial Revival in Wellesley, the quirky 1910s Shingle Style on Cape Cod, the 1930s brick Tudor. So when I heard that the house we’d be visiting in Dover was built in 1974, I didn’t expect a deep dive into the house’s history and architectural style. Oh, but I was wrong! As soon as the owner mentioned that the house was designed by Royal Barry Wills Associates, I perked right up and got to reading everything I could find on the famed Boston architecture firm. 

Here’s the thing – even if you’ve never heard of Royal Barry Wills, it's likely you’re already familiar with his “look”.  Famous for his Cape Cod-style houses, you can find his effortlessly elegant designs all over New England. 

In his lifetime, Wills designed 2,500 residences, wrote eight books about architecture, lectured widely, hosted a radio program, and won numerous awards for his work. By 1946 Life magazine called him “the nation’s most popular architectural author.”

Lucky for us, the whole of the Royal Barry Wills Associates archives were donated to Historic New England in 2014, making this invaluable collection of architectural drawings and photographs available for study. (Check them out here.) We learned during this process that while SOME of these drawings are available online, not all of them have been scanned and digitally archived. We worked with the archivist to get exactly what we needed for this project, and we were able to completely surprise our client with the original architectural drawings of her house. 

Anyone else out there own a Royal Barry Wills house? Contact us, we’re big fans! (Clearly.)