On May 12, the Boston Landmarks Commission voted to recommend the Landmark designation of the Swallow Mansion at 33 Cordis Street in Charlestown.
The designation was subsequently approved by Mayor Michelle Wu and the City Council.
Charlestown is home to Boston’s newest official Landmark
Approved by the Boston Landmarks Commission on May 12, 2026, the Swallow Mansion at 33 Cordis Street has been designated a Boston Landmark.
The Swallow Mansion, built in 1845, is one of the grandest houses in Charlestown – a neighborhood that is renowned for its significant history and beautiful architecture.
The name of the property derives from the Swallow family, who bought the house in 1862 and were the proprietors of one of the largest grocery retailers in Boston during the second half of the nineteenth century.
However, a closer look at the house’s past reveals that this is only one part of its rich history.
The Swallow Mansion provides a glimpse into how Charlestown’s housing stock was adapted by different demographic groups in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The house at 33 Cordis Street was constructed in 1845 by William H.
Bacon, likely with the intention to sell it speculatively.
The unusually fine Greek Revival residence projected an image of fashionable prosperity to attract wealthy merchant class buyers.
After passing through the hands of two such buyers, Amaziah Swallow purchased the house in 1862.
At the time of the sale, the area was primarily populated by a handful of detached houses, most of which were nearly fifty years old, and newer, smaller attached houses on the southern end of Cordis Street.
All of these houses directly abutted the road, but 33 Cordis Street, which was pushed back from the street, sat conspicuously apart.
Proudly free from any abutting houses, its tall basement level was set into the steeply sloping street, making it appear like a veritable temple in the hillside.
Swallow’s grocery store, located at 12 and 13 City Square, was a fixture in Charlestown for decades.
By the 1870s, Swallow’s company held contracts to supply warships for the federal government, and his son George joined him in running the family business.
George went on to serve in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and Senate before running for Mayor of Boston in 1903, ultimately losing to the incumbent Patrick Collins.
In 1904, after more than four decades of ownership by the Swallow family, George Swallow moved to the Back Bay and the house was sold to John and Ellen Buckley, who had immigrated to the United States from Ireland in 1856 and 1861, respectively.
The Buckleys lived in the house with their five children, along with several tenants who provided the family with supplementary income.
Over their 40 years of ownership the Buckleys updated and adapted 33 Cordis in various ways to function as a multifamily home, including subdividing the interior and installing a hot water heater in the basement.
In 1946 the house was sold to Joseph and Catherine Bassett, who continued to use the home as a multi-family income-producing property.
In 1954, they sold 33 Cordis to Sylvester and Helen DiDiego of New Jersey.
The DiDiegos owned the house for over 60 years.
During this time, Sylvester and Helen DiDiego, both of whom operated Syl’s Delivery Co., continued to house tenants, and in the mid-1950s they installed the necessary egress to fulfill multi-family code requirements.
After Helen DiDiego’s death in 2020, 33 Cordis Street passed to her children, before being sold to a new owner in 2026.
The house at 33 Cordis Street is architecturally significant as a rare Boston-area example of a Greek Revival temple-form house with a full-height columned portico capped by a pediment.
Although the Greek Revival style was common throughout New England, only a handful of homes in Boston are temple-fronts with full-height porches.
With the monumentality of its columns, entablature, and pediment, the Swallow Mansion could be considered the finest example of a Greek Revival house in Charlestown, and one of the finest in all of Boston.
At a public hearing on May 12, 2026, the BLC agreed with the staff recommendation to designate the Swallow Mansion as a Landmark under Chapter 772.
The designation was subsequently approved by the Mayor on June 1, 2026, and the City Council on June 3, 2026.
As a result of the designation, certain exterior work at the property is subject to the prior review and approval of the Boston Landmarks Commission.
This article was prepared by Jennifer Gaugler, Architectural Historian.
Last updated:July 7, 2026
Published by:Landmarks Commission
Last updated:July 7, 2026
Published by:Landmarks Commission