The Gardner-Pingree House can be found at 128 Essex Street in Salem, Massachusetts. The house is open to the public via guided tours that its owner, the Peabody Essex Museum, provides.
This Federal-style house was built around 1804, and mainly designed by Samuel McIntire, a famous wood carver and architect. A wealthy merchant named John Gardner, whom the house was built for, lived there with his wife, Elizabeth, for the next few years. However, financial problems caused John Gardner to sell the house to Nathaniel West in 1811.
In 1814, West sold the house to the wealthy Captain Joseph White, who was clubbed and stabbed to death while asleep in his bedroom on April 6, 1830. White had been murdered by a hit man hired by his nephews, who were impatient to receive his inheritance (they were later convicted and hanged).
The house was sold in 1834 to David Pingree. The Pingree family owned the house for the next century. Then, in 1933, the Pingree heirs donated the house to the Essex Institute, which later merged with the Peabody Museum to become the Peabody Essex Museum.
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