Personal Data

Harold Symmes Graves was born on November 27, 1876, in Medford, the son of Lewis F. Graves and his wife, Ella S. Symmes.

He married on June 24, 1902, in Northborough, to Edith Frances Winsor (b. 19Sep1874 in Northborough] d. 1976), daughter of Frank Gordon Winsor and his wife, Mary Louise Barnes.

Harold Graves died in 1952.

Career

In the mid-1890s, Harold Graves became a draftsman in the office of James Templeton Kelley, in Kelley’s home at 57 Mt. Vernon.  In about 1909,  he became an architect working with Kelley. It does not appear that there was ever a formal partnership of Kelley and Graves.  During the mid-1920s, Graves also was a partner with G. Douglas Morse in Graves, Morse & Company, manufacturers of bolts, nuts, and washers.  The company operated out of 57 Mt. Vernon and appears to have lasted until about 1926.

James Kelley retired in about 1925 and Graves moved his office to Boylston Street.  By 1929, he had formed a partnership with Thomas Byrd Epps.  They continued in partnership until the mid-1940s.  After that, it appears that Harold Graves retired from the partnership but continued to maintain an office with Thomas Epps until his death in 1952.

Graves lived in Weston from 1900 and designed a number of residences in the community.  Pamela Fox (Farm Town to Suburb: The History and Architecture of Weston, Massachusetts) describes his work there is follows: “Like his contemporaries in the early 20th century, Graves was facile in many different styles including Italian Renaissance (for the theater at the Sears estate), Tudor (Regis Tower and Meadowbrook Road), and Craftsman (143 Meadowbrook, which has touches of the Sears chalet).  He designed the distinctive English country cottage for Horace Sears’s gardener at 23 Wellesley Street (1913) and notable small scale Colonial Revival houses at 60 Wellesley Street and 10 Crescent Street.”

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