Category: Outbuildings

Chesterwood: The Studio (1897)

by Dan//Colonial Revival, Outbuildings, Stockbridge

Chesterwood is the 122-acre estate that was once the summer home of sculptor Daniel Chester French (1850–1931). French is famous for such sculptures as the Minuteman in Concord and the seated Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. Chesterwood, located in Stockbridge, is now owned by the National Trust for Historic preservation and is open to the public. In 1896, French purchased the farm of Marshall Warner. The following year, he moved the Warner barn, adjacent to the Warner House, to make way for his new studio. Designed by Henry Bacon (architect of the Lincoln Memorial), the Studio has a workroom, a reception area with a piano and a 50-foot veranda. The wooden frame building is covered with stucco in which marble and coal chips were mixed to provide texture. So that French could work on his pieces in natural light, the workroom has 30-foot high double doors through which sculptures could be brought outside on a flatcar along a short railway track. Continue reading “Chesterwood: The Studio (1897)”

Pottery, Old Sturbridge Village (1819)

by Dan//Commercial, Industrial, Outbuildings, Sturbridge, Vernacular

Harvey Brooks (1779-1873), of Goshen, Connecticut, began work at the age of sixteen as an apprentice potter. After 1819, he worked for himself as a rural farmer-potter, producing 26 different varieties and sizes of redware pots, pans and jugs. He had a pottery shop and an adjacent kiln, where he burned his last batch of ware in 1864, long after most other redware potters had given up practicing their craft. Brooks‘ pottery shop, built around 1819, was moved to Old Sturbridge Village in 1961 and a replica kiln was built in 1979.

Derby Summer House (1793)

by Dan//Danvers, Federal, Outbuildings

The Derby Summer House, also known as the McIntire Tea-house is a garden house, built in 1793 to plans by Samuel McIntire, for wealthy merchant Elias Hasket Derby‘s farm in Salem. In 1901, the Summer House was moved to Glen Magna Farms, the Danvers estate then owned by Ellen Peabody Endicott. Her son, William Crowninshield Endicott, Jr., was instrumental in bringing the Summer House to the property, where it now opens onto a walled rose garden designed by Herbert W. C. Browne. The two sculpted figures on the roof are reproductions of the originals. William Crowninshield Endicott, Jr.‘s wife, Louise Thoron Endicott, willed the Summer House to the Danvers Historical Society in 1958. In 1963, the Society purchased the central eleven acres of the estate and has restored the historic early twentieth-century gardens.