25 and 27 Commonwealth were designed by Gridley J. F. Bryant and Arthur D. Gilman and built ca. 1861 for shipping merchant and Congressman Samuel Hooper and his wife Anne (Sturgis) Hooper on land he had purchased from the Commonwealth in May of 1860. Samuel and Anne Hooper lived at 27 Commonwealth. Their son, William Sturgis Hooper and his wife, Alice (Mason) Hooper, lived at 25 Commonwealth.
