This building was built by William Parlon in 1891 and was called Boylston Hall. But in 1900 it was renamed Abt Hall when a German-American musical society took it over. It was named for Franz Wilhelm Abt, a German composer who was a friend of Mendelsohn and Schumann. It is a Renaissance Revival building with quoins (stone block pieces at the corners) and pilasters (flattened columns) rising up to a triangular pediment. It has a piano nobile (great floor) like a Renaissance palazzo – on the 2nd floor where the concert hall was located. The decorative panels on the front of the building have musical instruments.
From 1918 to the late 1990s this building was the home of The Jamaica Plain Neighborhood House – a settlement house that provided social services to this working class district. It has now been converted into condominiums.