Phillips House

The Stephen Phillips Trust House is a non-profit house museum dedicated to promoting an understanding of the historic past as a means of enriching the present.

This Federal style mansion at 34 Chestnut Street is run by Historic New England and open to the public. Many articles in the home are from the Phillips' extensive travel to Fiji and Africa. The carriage house in the rear houses antique carriages and cars. The home reflects five generations of the Phillips family as well as the Wheatland, Duncan, Pingree and related ancillary families.

The original home was built in South Danvers in 1800. In 1821, after a bitter divorce from his wife Elizabeth, Capt. Nathaniel West moved his third of the house (four rooms) to the up-and coming part of Salem, Chestnut Street.

The house belonged to the West family into the 19th century. It was then passed through a number of residents and used for a gentlemen's boarding house and a girls' school.

Ann Wheatland Phillips bought the house in 1911. She and her husband Stephen W. hired architect William Rantoul to remodel the house in the Colonial Revival style.

The house was turned into a museum in 1971, after Stephen W. Phillips, - the son of Anna and Stephen - passed away. Mrs. Bessie Wright Phillips established the museum (her husband’s childhood home) in 1973 as a memorial to her husband’s family and the sailing ship era of Salem.

The home was privately run until 2006, when it became part of Historic New England.

See Also

• Vertical File in Salem Collection - Phillips House

• The Phillips House Streets of Salem blog

• Phillips House Historic New England website

• "Cataloging artifacts at the Phillips House" Salem Evening News, Sept. 16, 1999, p. A3

• "Phillips House makes a historic discovery ; curators uncover documents signed by Lincoln, Washington" Salem Evening News, Sept. 20, 2000, p. A1

• "Tender tales of the women of the house; recalling splendor, hard work of daily life at Phillips manse" Boston Sunday Globe, June 30, 2002, p. N1

• Model A highlights a new season at Phillips House" Salem Evening News, May 28, 2002, p. A1