Fenway Court opens.

Architect: Willard Sears. Designed in the Italianate style, modeled after the Palazzo Barbaro in Venice, and located at 280 Fenway. Built as her home and to house Mrs. Isabella Stewart Gardner’s art collection, it contains a lush, interior garden and courtyard. Guests at its opening, including Julia Ward Howe and Edith Wharton are served champagne and doughnuts and entertained by members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Henry Adams later describes the effect of a visit as “Peace, repose or dream, rather like opium.” Gardner opens the building to public occasionally beginning on February 23, 1903, but charges a one dollar admission fee (equal to $35 today) so visitors they will be more likely to appreciate the experience. After her death, the building reopens as the Gardner Museum in 1925.*