Henry Davis Sleeper

Henry Davis Sleeper was born March 27, 1878, in Boston. He was the youngest son of Major Jacob Henry Sleeper (1839–1891), a distinguished Civil War veteran, and Maria (née Westcott) Sleeper (1837–1917). His elder brothers were Jacob Sleeper and Stephen Westcott Sleeper, who later married Elisa Cushing. He was the grandson of Jacob Sleeper, one of the founders of Boston University as well as a clothier and manager of a real estate trust. Henry's education appears to have been by private tutors due to ill health as a child, and it is unclear as to whether he was ever formally educated. == Career ==

, 2016 Sleeper was introduced to the Eastern Point in Gloucester, Massachusetts, in the spring of 1906 by the Harvard economist A. Piatt Andrew, who later served in the U.S. House of Representatives, who had built a handsome summer mansion, Red Roof, on a rock ledge above the harbor. Sleeper was much taken by the location and immediately decided to build a little further along the ledge from Red Roof. He purchased the land on Eastern Point in Gloucester on August 13, 1907. He constructed the house with pieces of old buildings, including paneling from an 18th-century house in Essex, Massachusetts that he used in his entrance hall and dining room. Clients could choose wallpapers, window treatments, or entire rooms to have reproduced in their own houses. Sleeper had a specialty in "Puritan Revival", the Jacobean-American architecture and decorative arts of the original American colonies, but his tastes and interests included French decor of several centuries and a great deal of orientalia. Sleeper decorated the (ultimately 56) rooms to evoke different historical and literary themes. While Andrew served in the battle zones, Sleeper crisscrossed the Atlantic with supplies and funds, and worked closely with the French military. France awarded him the Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honor. Post-war After the war, Sleeper's practice expanded and he won national recognition via prestigious periodicals and several high-visibility clients. Isabella Stewart Gardner commissioned work from him; Henry Francis du Pont engaged his assistance with the big new wing of the family's massive Delaware house, Winterthur, now a famed museum of American decorative arts; he designed for Hollywood stars Joan Crawford and Fredric March. In May 1934, he was granted an Honorary Membership in the American Institute of Architects. Sleeper also maintained a townhouse in Boston, which was published in Country Life in 1930. Sleeper died in Massachusetts General Hospital of leukemia on September 22, 1934, aged 56. He is buried in his family's plot in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Watertown and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Andrew wrote the memorial tribute published in the Gloucester Daily Times. == Personal life ==

Sleeper never married and left no direct descendants. He maintained a townhouse in Boston, which was published in Country Life in 1930. ==Death and legacy==

Sleeper died in Massachusetts General Hospital of leukemia on September 22, 1934, and is buried in his family's plot in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Watertown and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Andrew wrote the memorial tribute published in the Gloucester Daily Times. As he had no direct descendants, Beauport was sold to Helena Woolworth McCann, the daughter of Frank Winfield Woolworth, who was contacted by Henry Francis Du Pont urging that Sleeper's rooms remain exactly as they were as the value of the house and its collection of art objects depended primarily on their being left unchanged. McCann preserved the house as it was; at her death, the house was inherited by her daughters from whose hands it passed into the care of Historic New England in 1942. Beauport, Sleeper-McCann House was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2003. In 2008, due to new information on Sleeper's life emerging, the decision was made to acknowledge his homosexuality in tour guides of Beauport, "not to define Sleeper but to contextualize him." ==References==