Staff Wing

Sewing Room and Staff Living Quarters

Room with a window, dresser, and open door with view of stairs beyond.

The living and working spaces of the staff

The servants in the house used these back stairs and hall – notice the shift to simple paneling and furnishings. The floor plan refers to this space as a sewing room, though it may have been used as an informal sitting room space for staff as well.

Please note the staff rooms and back stairs are off limits to visitors so please do not enter those areas.

Architect William Ralph Emerson designed a unique servant’s wing on the east end of the house. All the servant spaces are arranged in a column, with the work rooms on the basement and ground level; living quarters on the second floor; and an additional bedroom and storage on the third floor. This wing receives the first light of the day at sunrise, a helpful detail for those in the house who rose first and started work early.

Staff Bedroom 1

The original staff bedrooms on this floor were modernized in the late 20th century. This series of photos was taken before the changes were made. From the census, we know that there were usually about five staff members living in the mansion, most of them women. There were four bedrooms on the second floor and a fifth bedroom on the third floor.

Staff Bedroom 2

The photographs show the furnishings and layout of the rooms when staff inhabited them. They were well-appointed rooms and the staff was able to customize them with their personal possessions. Compare the furniture in these rooms to the bedroom set in the bed chamber on this floor and notice the similarities.

Staff Bedroom 3

The rooms had modern conveniences like gas lights and were later electrified. All staff used the bathroom on the first floor at the bottom of the stairs.

Staff Bedroom 4

This room adjoins the night nursery, where first the twins Fred and Gus slept, followed later by sister Mary. This bedroom would have been used initially by the person caring for the children. In the 1880s, this was Emeline Hildebrand, who went on to become housekeeper. Note the singer sewing machine that may have been used by the room’s later occupant Nellie Butler.

Staff Bedroom 5

The fifth staff bedroom was on the third floor. This room was smaller and less comfortable and adjoined some of the wardrobe storage areas. In the 1920s it was converted into a bathroom.

View the spaces

Staff Bedroom 1

Staff Bedroom 2

Staff Bedroom 3

Staff Bedroom 4

Staff Bedroom 5

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Nellie Butler

Nellie Butler was a lady’s maid and seamstress at the Eustis Estate from 1923 to 1945. Nellie was born to Irish immigrants in 1863 in Charlestown, Massachusetts. She started work as a servant later in life and became a maid at Eastover, the Ernest and Margaret Bowditch estate in Milton, in 1910 around the age of 50. Ernest was a prominent landscape gardener who designed the grounds of the Eustis Estate. When their daughter, Elizabeth Bowditch, married Augustus Eustis in 1923, Nellie Butler came with Elizabeth to work in her new home.

The Eustis family fondly recalled spending time with her here in the service wing of the house, which was the only staff room the children could enter. They described her charming room full of plants and personal touches that was “down the slide” from the night nursery. This room was connected by a ramp due to the difference in height between the service wing rooms and the rooms in the family section of the house.

“Well, we’d all come down to visit Nellie and chat. She was welcoming. She would come around with a teapot to water the plants. She said she’d give them a cup of tea but it was really water. She had the best radio, we listened to all kinds of things. The sewing machine – she was great at sewing and mother wasn’t. She had a little shrine to Saint Francis feeding the birds, which made an impression on me. We all loved feeding the birds.”

Newly Completed Mansion

These photographs of the Eustis mansion were taken by Roxbury-based photographer A.H. Folsom around 1879 when the building was completed. This view provides an unobstructed view of the service entrance and servant’s wing of the house. This view is now obscured by the trees that have grown around the house.

Photograph of Eustis Estate, c. 1879

Photograph by A.H. Folsom of the rear side of the completed house.