Category: Neoclassical

Second Brazer Building (1896)

by Dan//Boston, Commercial, Neoclassical

The Second Brazer Building (pdf), an early steel-frame skyscraper in Boston is located at 25-29 State Street, across from the Old State House, at the intersection with Devonshire Street. Built in 1896, it replaced the original three-story Brazer’s Building of 1842, which had stood on the same spot. The Second Brazer Building is the only Boston commission of New York architect Cass Gilbert and features decorative terra-cotta on the upper floors. The building has a trapezoidal foundation plan to fit the irregular street grid pattern.

Former Masonic Temple, Springfield (1924)

by Dan//Churches, Egyptian Revival, Neoclassical, Organizations, Springfield

The former Springfield Masonic Temple, located at 339-341 State Street, was built between 1924 and 1926. Before its construction, the Springfield Masons used an earlier Masonic Hall at the corner of Main and State streets. The 1924 Temple is a Springfield landmark, with a monumental neo-classical exterior built of Indiana limestone with terra cotta trim. The facade features Egyptian Revival details, including four columns above the doorway, and symbols characteristic of masonry. Above the colonnade is a frieze with the dates A.L. 5924 and A.D. 1924, and the Latin inscription: “Aedificatum Ut Lux Splendesceret” (“Erected That Light Might Become Brighter”). In 2007, the Masons sold the building to the International Communion of the Holy Christian Orthodox Church, under the leadership of Archbishop Timothy Paul Baymon. The building is now used as a church called the Basilica of the Holy Apostles.

Southborough Public Library (1911)

by Dan//Libraries, Neoclassical, Southborough

At a town meeting in Southborough in 1852, Col. Francis B. Fay offered $500 for a town library. Matching funds were raised and the Fay Library, located in the town hall, was officially started. It was one of the nation’s first free municipal libraries. Col. Fay, who served as a U.S. Representative, among other public offices, would later donate additional funds to the Library. A separate building for the Library was constructed in 1909-1911 on land donated by the Burnett family. The Southborough Library building was expanded in 1989.

Y.M.C.A. Building, Salem (1898)

by Dan//Colonial Revival, Neoclassical, Organizations, Salem

In 1873, Alexander Graham Bell took up residence in the Sanders Homestead on Essex Street in Salem. The house was home to the grandmother of Bell’s deaf pupil George Sanders, whose father, Thomas Sanders, became an investor in Bell’s telephone system. Until 1876, Bell used a room in the Sanders House to conduct the experiments which led to his development of the telephone. The house was later torn down and in 1898 a Y.M.C.A. building was completed on the site. Designed by architect Walter J. Paine of Beverly, it combines elements of the Beaux-Arts and Colonial Revival styles. The building originally had an elaborate fourth-story loggia, since removed. The Y.M.C.A. Building also houses the North Shore Children’s Museum.

Emerson Hall, Harvard (1905)

by Dan//Cambridge, Collegiate, Colonial Revival, Neoclassical

Emerson Hall, located in Harvard Yard in Cambridge, is the home of the University’s Philosophy Department. Named for Ralph Waldo Emerson, the building was designed by Guy Lowell and was completed in 1905. The noted psychologist and philosopher, William James, taught in Emerson Hall when he was at Harvard. Over the entrance of the building is the Biblical inscription: “What is man that thou art mindful of him?” (Psalm 8:4).

The Mount (1902)

by Dan//Colonial Revival, Houses, Lenox, Neoclassical

The Mount

Edith Wharton‘s first book, The Decoration of Houses (1897), written with Ogden Codman, Jr., was very influential as a guide to interior design. The work was a reaction to the Victorian style of heavily curtained and cluttered rooms, instead emphasizing the style of the harmonious and simply proportioned classical rooms of Europe. The main house of Wharton‘s country estate in the Berkshires, called the Mount and located in Lenox, was built in 1902 and displays the principles she had advocated in her book. The house, designed by Wharton with assistance from Codman, was inspired by the seventeenth century English estate, Belton House, but the Mount‘s design also drew strongly on classical Italian and French architecture. The gardens and grounds were also designed by Wharton, with the kitchen garden and drive being designed by Wharton‘s niece, Beatrix Jones Farrand.

Wharton and her husband, Edward, lived in the Mount from 1902 to 1911. The house was later used as a girls’ dormitory for the Foxhollow School, and the site of Shakespeare & Company. In the 1980s, the property was bought by Edith Wharton Restoration, which has restored the grounds and much of the house. The house was opened to the public in 2001, but in 2008 the institution, which had spent millions to acquire the surviving half of Edith Wharton’s collection of books, defaulted on loans and faced foreclosure. Please help save the Mount by visiting and spending money there! There is an online video available of Bob Villa taking a tour of the Mount. Below are some pictures and descriptions of some of the rooms at the Mount and the gardens: Continue reading “The Mount (1902)”