Historic Houses
Lye-Tapley Shoe Shop
Federal Garden area
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The Lye-Tapley Shoe Shop (1830) is a ten-foot-by-ten-foot vernacular outbuilding, also known as a ten-footer.
These small structures were common at one time on the North Shore, a center for shoemaking in the 19th century. Here, shoes were made by hand. PEM retains an extensive collection of the building’s original contents, including many shoemaking tools and materials.
Very few ten-footers survive today. These shops provided shoes and other leather goods for the pedestrian, agricultural and maritime trades in the days just before the rise of large-scale factories during the Industrial Revolution. Ten-footers were noted as small, local centers for news and gossip.
This structure is the only industrial structure in PEM’s architecture collection. It’s significant for its connection to the industries that supported Salem’s success in the international maritime trade. The Shoe Shop was originally located in Lynn, Mass., and recent historical analysis confirms that this is the original shoe shop listed in historical records from 1783.
After descending through several generations, it was bequeathed to the Essex Institute (a precursor organization of PEM) in 1911 and moved to its current site.
PEM Walks host Dinah Cardin with Steven Mallory, Manager of Historic Structures and Landscapes, in front of the Tapley Shoe Shop. Photo by Kathy Tarantola/PEM.
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