In addition to its well-known Colonial-era houses, Brattle Street in Cambridge also has many Colonial Revival homes, built in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A number of these were designed by John W. Ames, such as the house at 114 Brattle, which closely follows the style of eighteenth century Georgian structures.
The Connecticut Valley Historical Society, based in Springfield, was incorporated in 1876. The Society originally held its meetings and housed its collections in the Springfield City Library, until a museum building, known as the William Pynchon Memorial Building, was constructed, next to the Springfield Science Museum, in 1927. The Connecticut Valley Historical Museum, designed by the Springfield architect Max Westoff, is a Colonial Revival structure, based on a the Colonial homes of the Connecticut River Valley. The main entrance of the museum, with its broken scroll pediment, is modeled on such homes as the Samuel Porter House in Hadley and the Josiah Dwight House, originally built in Springfield and later moved to Deerfield. The Historical Museum formally joined the Springfield Museums Association in 1948. UPDATE: The museum closed and its collections are now part of the Lyman & Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History. The former Connecticut Valley Historical Museum is now home to Dr. Seuss Museum.
At 115 Brattle Street in Cambridge is a Colonial Revival style house built in 1887 for Annie Allegra Longfellow Thorp, a daughter of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Inspired by her father’s eighteenth century Georgian house nearby, the daughter’s home was designed by her cousin, Alexander Wadsworth Longfellow, Jr. Having worked in the office of H.H. Richardson, A.W. Longfellow started his own firm and was known for his Romanesque and Colonial Revival designs.
Built in 1912, the United States Post Office in Deerfield was remodeled in 1952 to look like Deerfield’s third meeting house, which was in use from 1696 to 1728. It originally stood on Deerfield’s town common. An original picture of the meeting house is on the upper right corner of a drawing of town, Delineated Deerfield, by Dudley Woodbridge, a physician from Mystic, Connecticut who kept a 5-page journal of his 1728 journey from Cambridge to Sunderland.
The first of the state pavilion buildings constructed as part of the Eastern States Exposition’s “Avenue of States” was the Massachusetts Building, dedicated in 1919 by then governor Calvin Coolidge. The building, designed by architect James H. Ritchie, is a replica of the Old State House in Boston.
Built in 1884 by Edward and Frederick Everett, to replace an earlier inn on the village common, the Deerfield Inn was enlarged for the first time the following year and, adjacent to the buildings of Historic Deerfield, continues to serve visitors today.
The Connecticut Building was the fifth New England state building to be constructed on the “Avenue of States” at the Eastern States Exposition fairgrounds in West Springfield. The cornerstone was laid by Governor Wilbur C. Cross on September 20, 1938 and the building, designed as a replica of the Old State House in Hartford, was completed the following year. Edit: I’ve taken a better quality image of the building; below is the old one… Continue reading “Connecticut Building (Eastern States Exposition) (1939)”
