Samuel McIntire was Salem’s most prominent woodcarver, house builder and cabinetmaker during the Federal period in American Architecture (1790-1825).  Likewise, Elias Haskett Derby was Salem’s most prominent merchant.  His ships were the first to land in Canton, China to buy spices, silks, porcelains, lacquer ware and other goods.

From the diary of a young lady who visited the Derby Farm in July 1802, we know that the Summer House sat in the center of a garden filled with rare plants and trees.  The arch was open without the lattice doors on it today.  She wrote of going up the stairs to the room above, “The air from the windows is always pure and cool and the eye wanders with delight over the beautiful landscape below…  The room is ornamented with some Chinese figures and seems calculated for serenity and peace.”  It is probable that the building was used more often as a place to cool off from the summer heat and to view the garden, than as a place to drink tea.

In 1901, Ellen Peabody Endicott (Mrs. William Crowninshield Endicott, Sr.), purchased the Summer House and had it moved to Glen Magna Farms, a distance of four miles. It was so well built that not even the plaster cracked during the move. At the same time, however, it had only one figure on the roof—The Reaper. After a twenty year search, the Milkmaid was found again on a mill building in Andover, badly damaged by fire. An exact duplicate was carved spring of 1924, she was placed back in her original position. The original Milkmaid is now in the collection of the Peabody Essex Museum of Salem. The original Reaper fell off in a storm in 1981. It too, was reproduced and the original is in the collection of the Danvers Historical Society.

The Derby Summer House is unique. There is no other extant building like it in the United States today. McIntire did design a second summer house—for Derby’s son’s farm—but only a painting remains to show what it looked like. Aside from its rarity, the Summer House is important because it represents American Federal architecture at its finest. The Federal style was based on the work of the Scottish architect Robert Adam who studied private homes in ancient Rome, especially at Pompeii and Herculaneum. Walk around the Summer House and notice the delicate columns, the festoons above the second story windows and the runs on the roof, all carved by McIntyre himself. Check the dramatic scale and careful details of the Reaper and the Milkmaid, carved for McIntire by John and Simon Skillin of Boston. Look at the building from across the garden and observe the perfect proportions. Remember, that it was all made by hand more than two hundred years ago. Louise Thoron Endicott (Mrs. William Crowninshield Endicott, Jr.) willed the Derby Summer House to the Danvers Historical Society in 1958.