The House of the Seven Gables is one of the most well-known buildings in Salem, and for good reason. Inspiring the Nathaniel Hawthorne novel of the same name, the House of the Seven Gables was originally built in 1668 for Captain John Turner, a wealthy merchant and sea captain. It was originally a smaller, two-room house, with a kitchen, bed chamber, and parlor room added onto the structure in Turner’s later years. After his death, Turner’s son remodeled the house in a Georgian style, making the house one of the few remaining examples of original Georgian-style architecture in North America.
The house gained its fame from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, a story of familial guilt, revenge, and witchcraft. The house of the novel directly inspired Hawthorne, though more in name than design- by the time he would have seen the building, there were only three gables, not seven. However, Hawthorne’s own heritage likely inspired the dour plot of the story; his great-great-grandfather John Hathorne was a notably harsh judge during the Salem Witch Trials, and sentenced several accused to their deaths. It is likely that Hawthorne added the ‘w’ to his surname to try and dissociate himself from his own family’s sins.
Today, the house is a museum and designated on the National Register of Historic Places. It also acts as a settlement house, offering ESL, citizenship, and digital literacy classes to help immigrants prepare for life in the United States.
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