401 Beacon was originally designed by Eisenberg and Feer, architects, and built in 1927 as a five-unit apartment house for William Schell. He was a lawyer, and assistant district attorney. The land on which 401 Beacon was built was purchased from the Boston Water Power Company on February 20, 1863, by banker and broker Robert Marion Pratt. He was unmarried and lived at 13 Louisburg Square with his parents, George Williams Pratt (one of the founders of the Boston Stock Exchange) and Mary Barrow (White) Pratt. The Pratts also maintained a home, Oakley, on Belmont Avenue in Watertown (it became the Oakley Country Club in 1898).*
*Courtesy Of Buntings, Back Bay