Queen Anne – Page 5 – Historic Buildings of Massachusetts

Chapin Mansion (1880)

by Dan/September 4, 2012/Holyoke, Houses, Queen Anne

The house at 181 Elm Street in Holyoke was built around 1880. From 1882 to 1884, it was the residence of Clemens Herschel, who worked as a hydraulic engineer at the Holyoke Water Power Company from 1879 to 1889. During that time, Herschel designed a new testing flume for hydraulic turbines, waterwheels, pumps, and meters. He also invented the Venturi meter, used to measure the flow of water, which he first tested in 1886. By that same year, the house had become the residence of Edward Whitman Chapin, a lawyer who began practicing law in Holyoke in 1865 and was appointed an associate justice of the Holyoke district court in 1877. He later served twenty years as presiding justice of the court. He was a member of “The Club,” which focused on literary endeavors and was organized at his home on On November 15, 1890. Judge Chapin married Mary Beebe in May 1866 and had four children. He died in 1924 and the house was passed on to his two unmarried daughters, Clara M. and Alice M. Chapin. Today, the Edward W. Chapin House is called Chapin Mansion and is operated by the Valley Opportunity Council as a residence for homeless veterans.

William Oakes House (1878)

by Dan/July 4, 2012/Houses, Natick, Queen Anne

The house at 43 Eliot Street in South Natick was built in in 1878 for William Oakes. It is believed to occupy the site of an apple orchard planted for Rev. Oliver Peabody by the Natick Praying Indians.

Sacred Heart Church Rectory, South Natick (1880)

by Dan/July 4, 2012/Houses, Natick, Queen Anne

The house at 19 Eliot Street in South Natick was built in the 1880s by Harper Leavitt on land once owned by David Morse. Leavitt died in 1893 and in 1895 the house was purchased by Sacred Heart Church for use as a rectory

Todd House (1887)

by Dan/July 4, 2012July 4, 2012/Amherst, Houses, Queen Anne

Mabel Loomis Todd (1856-1932) and her husband, astronomer David Peck Todd, erected the house at 90 Spring Street in Amherst, the first Queen Anne-style house in town, in 1886-1887. The house was built on land the Todds acquired from Austin Dickinson, brother of the poet Emily Dickinson. Mabel Loomis Todd, who had an affair with Austin Dickinson, is remembered for her editing of posthumously published poems by Emily Dickinson. The first volume of Poems by Emily Dickinson, edited by Todd and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, was published in 1890. Later, there was a legal battle over property owned by Austin Dickinson and given to the Todds by his sister Lavinia. In 1898, the Todds sold the house and moved to another home in Amherst. That same year, Senator George B. Churchill came to teach rhetoric at Amherst College. He moved the Todd House from its original location to the other side of Spring Street and in 1907 built on the site his own house, called “The Dell” (a name that had also been given to the Todd House).

Edgar F. Crooks House (1886)

by Dan/December 21, 2011/Houses, Northampton, Queen Anne

The house at 28 Pomeroy Terrace in Northampton was built in 1885-1886 by C.H. Jones of Springfield for E.F. Crooks. C.H. Jones was a painter, artist and architect who designed other buildings in Northampton, including the Lilly Library in Florence. Edgar F. Crooks was the superintendent of the factory in Northampton of Belding Brothers & Co., silk manufacturers.

6-8 Pomeroy Terrace, Northampton (1895)

by Dan/December 20, 2011/Houses, Northampton, Queen Anne

The only double house on Pomeroy Terrace in Northampton is located at Nos. 6-8. It was built around 1895 as a rental property by Henry Staplin, on land he had acquired in 1886, when the Pomeroy Terrace development was being established. Staplin was a milliner, with a business at 157 Main Street.

John L. Draper House (1895)

by Dan/November 11, 2011November 9, 2011/Houses, Northampton, Queen Anne

At 2 Pomeroy Terrace in Northampton is an impressive (and impressively situated) Queen Anne mansion, built for John L. Draper in 1895. Draper, a wealthy retired merchant, held a competition for the design of his house. The winner from among the three competing local architects who submitted plans was Curtis Page, whose design included an impressive three-story tower, behind which is a decorative chimney built of Longmeadow stone and red brick. A developer restored the house and converted it into condominiums in the mid-1980s.