Ashton L. Carr

There is no other address in Melrose like 56 Larchmont Road, a house of such opulence that it seems like it fell out of the pages of The Great Gatsby. This was the home of Ashton L. Carr, who tragically never had much of a chance to enjoy it.

Carr had been born in 1876 at 39 West Emerson Street. When he was six years old, his father, George, who worked as a bank clerk, ran down West Emerson one morning to catch the train, only to suffer a fatal heart attack upon boarding. He was 43.

Raised by his mother, Martha, Carr graduated from Melrose High School in 1894 and then matriculated at Harvard, graduating in 1898. Like his father before him, he went into banking, working at the State Street Trust Company. He was soon promoted to vice-president. In 1900, he married Clara Vossnach, a nurse at the Melrose Hospital, where he served as a trustee. They lived at 152 Upham Street and had a son, George.

In 1911, Carr was named one of three trustees of the Fenway Realty Trust, and in that role was the person chiefly responsible for financing the construction of Fenway Park; you can see him on the bottom left of the photo from Fenway’s opening day.

In 1924, Carr with two other partners founded the Massachusetts Investors Trust, and in so doing changed finance forever, for this was the first mutual fund in American history. Today known as MFS, the company Carr founded 97 years ago is now worth a half-trillion dollars.

Carr used his earnings to have 58 Larchmont built from 1928 to 1929. It featured a two and one-half story library, long since repurposed, which Carr used to house his extensive collection of rare books and manuscripts. No doubt he looked forward to many long years in his glorious new home.

Carr’s investments survived the crash of 1929, and he and Clara took a European vacation in the winter of 1931. Upon returning, he developed an illness in his mouth that spread through his body and killed him at age 55.

Not long after his death, Clara was forced to sell both the house and all of the books in the library. She and George moved into a modest house in Malden. George died at age 48.