Category: Colonial Revival

Sedgwick Little House (1898)

by Dan//Colonial Revival, Houses, Stockbridge

Sedgwick Little House

At 18 Main Street in Stockbridge is a house known as the “Sedgwick Little House” or the Erik Erikson House. Its earliest section was originally a large cottage built c. 1855 (other dates claimed for the house are 1850 and the 1870s). In 1896, the property was acquired by Henry Dwight Sedgwick III, prominent Stockbridge resident and one of the well-known Sedgwick family. The Sedgwick Pie in Stockbridge Cemetery is the famous burial place of the Sedgwick family. In 1898, Henry D. Sedgwick built “the Sedgwick Little House” (the central section of the current Colonial Revival mansion) for his son Alexander (1867-1929). This seems to have replaced the original cottage (?). The house was later expanded through additions made between 1898 and 1908. The east and west wings were added by Edward L. Morse, who bought the house in 1908. Later, the house was purchased by the well-known writer and psychoanalyst Erik Erikson, who was working at the Austin Riggs Center at the time. The house is now a bed & breakfast called the Taggart House.

74 Fairfield Street, Springfield (1903)

by Dan//Colonial Revival, Foursquare, Houses, Springfield

74 Fairfield St., Springfield

The house at 74 Fairfield Street in Springfield was built in 1903 for Henry Russell, but it is most notable as the childhood home of Dr. Seuss. Theodore Geisel was born on March 2, 1904, in his family’s home on Howard Street. In 1906, when he was two, his family moved to 74 Fairfield Street, where they would live until 1943. The author’s father, Theodore Geisel, senior, ran the family brewery until it closed due to prohibition. He then became superintendent of city parks, which included the local zoo. Ted Geisel moved away after he graduated from Dartmouth in 1925, but images from his childhood in Springfield would later reappear in his illustrated children’s books.

Calvin Coolidge House (1901)

by Dan//Colonial Revival, Foursquare, Houses, Northampton

Calvin Coolidge House

Calvin Coolidge, 30th President of the United States (1923-1929), was born in 1872 in Vermont and spent much of his adult life as a lawyer and politician in Massachusetts. From 1906, a year after he married, until he retired from the presidency, Coolidge and his wife, Grace Anna Goodhue Coolidge, rented the left side of a two-family house at 19-21 Massasoit Street in Northampton. The house was built in 1901 by builder J.W. O’Brien. While he lived there, Coolidge served as City Councilor and Mayor in Northampton, state senator and Governor of Massachusetts, and then vice-president and president of the United States. In 1930, the Coolidges moved to another house in Northampton. He died in 1933. The Forbes Library in Northampton is home to the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum. It is the only only public library in the United States to hold a presidential collection.

Hadley Farm Museum (1782)

by Dan//Colonial Revival, Hadley, Outbuildings, Vernacular

Hadley Farm Museum

A barn, constructed in 1782 on the Porter-Phelps-Huntington estate, was moved in 1930 to the rear of the Hadley Town Hall. It is now home to the Hadley Farm Museum, which houses a collection of vehicles and equipment used on New England farms from the eighteenth through the early twentieth centuries. When it was moved, the barn‘s exterior was redecorated with white painted clapboards. A doorway was added, which is a copy of the famous Connecticut River Valley doorway of the Samuel Porter House in Hadley.

Hotel Northampton (1927)

by Dan//Colonial Revival, Hotels, Northampton

Hotel Northampton

The Hotel Northampton, at 36 King Street in Northampton, was first opened in 1927. The hotel was funded by a five-year subscription drive by the local chamber of commerce to provide Northampton with an appropriately substantial and luxurious hotel. The Colonial Revival-style Hotel Northampton is one of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s “Historic Hotels of America.” Attached to the hotel is the old Wiggins Tavern, a building which dates back to 1786 and was moved to Northampton from Hopkinton, New Hampshire. The Tavern had been opened by Benjamin Wiggins, an ancestor of Lewis Wiggins, the entrepreneur who had built the Hotel Northampton.

First Baptist Church, Pittsfield (1927)

by Dan//Churches, Colonial Revival, Pittsfield

First Baptist Church, Pittsfield

The origins of the Baptist church in Pittsfield go back to the eighteenth century, but its first meeting house was completed in 1827. It was located on North Street, on the northwest corner of the burial ground. The church’s growth led to the construction of a larger building in 1850, which was enlarged and remodeled in 1874-1875. This church was demolished in 1920 to make way for the Onota Building. The First Baptist Church‘s current edifice, at 88 South Street, was built in 1927-1930 (the parish house being completed first in 1926). It was designed by Joseph McArthur Vance.