Category: Colonial Revival

81 Joy Street, Boston (1902)

by Dan//Boston, Colonial Revival, Houses

Site of former 8 Belnap Street in Boston

The house at 81 Joy Street in Boston was built in 1902 and replaced an earlier house on the site, built in 1825 and numbered 8 Belknap Street. This had been the home of two African American abolitionist leaders. From 1827 to 1829, David Walker resided here with his wife Eliza. Born a free black in North Carolina, Walker came to Boston where he ran and used clothing store. In 1829 he published Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World and Expressly to the Coloured Citizens of the United States. This work, which called on enslaved people to rebel against their masters, was banned in the south and Georgia slave owners placed a bounty on Walker’s head. The house was next home to James and Maria W. Stewart. Maria Stewart gave speeches about women’s rights and against slavery, which were published by William Lloyd Garrison. She is the first American born woman, of any race, known to have spoken publicly on political issues. She moved to New York in 1834. Rev. George H. Black, one of the founders of the Twelfth Baptist Church, and Leonard Black, a former slave, lived in the house in the late 1830s. Their lives are discussed in Life and Sufferings of Leonard Black, A Fugitive from Slavery. Written by Himself (1848).

Butler House/Swann Cottage (1894)

by Dan//Colonial Revival, Houses, Stockbridge

Butler House/Swan Cottage (1894)

At 25 Main Street in Stockbridge is a mansion built in 1894 for Charles E. Butler (1818-1897). It was designed by Robert S. Stephenson and Stanford White. After 1904, it was known as “Swann Cottage” and was home to Mrs. John Butler Swann. Later an inn, the house was acquired by the Austin Riggs Center in the 1950s (it is now the Center‘s Medical Office Building). The wings were added for medical offices and the building was painted white in 1957.

Brown Caldwell House (1890)

by Dan//Colonial Revival, Houses, Stockbridge

Brown Caldwell House (1890)

Built circa 1890 and designed by Delano & Aldrich, the Brown Caldwell House is located at 23 Main Street in Stockbridge. In 1930, the house was sold to the Austin Riggs Center. In 1907, while recuperating from tuberculosis in Stockbridge, New York internist Dr. Austen Fox Riggs began to expand his interest in psychiatry and psychology, developing a new and innovative treatment program. He founded The Stockbridge Institute for the Study and Treatment of the Psychoneuroses, which was incorporated in 1919 as the Austen Riggs Foundation. The house was remodeled (its pedimented portico was removed) to become Foundation Inn, one of several historic buildings that comprise the campus of the Austin Riggs Center.

Holyoke Savings Bank (1928)

by Dan//Banks, Colonial Revival, Holyoke

At 99 Suffolk Street (aka 143 Chestnut Street) in Holyoke is a former bank building constructed beginning in 1928 for the Holyoke Savings Bank, which had been founded in 1855. An article in the Springfield Sunday Union and Republican (April 1928) announced that the new building was to be designed by Hutchins & French of Boston and that the construction contract had been awarded to the John F. Griffin Company of Boston. At some point the bank became the Vanguard Savings Bank, which failed in 1992, (Fleet Bank assumed Vanguard’s deposits). Three years later, the Holyoke Gas & Electric Department acquired the building from the FDIC. Interior and exterior historic renovation work on the former bank building was completed in 1996. (I would like to thank Eileen Crosby of the Holyoke History Room for helping me find information about this building).

Loring-Emmerton House (1818)

by Dan//Colonial Revival, Federal, Houses, Salem

The Pickman-Loring-Emmerton House, at 328 Essex Street in Salem, was built in 1818 as a Federal style house. In the mid-nineteenth century, it was the residence of George B. Loring (1817-1891), who served in the U.S. House of Representatives (1877-1881), as United States Commissioner of Agriculture (1881-1885) and as Minister to Portugal (1889-1890). The house was later owned by George R. Emmerton, a merchant and president of the Merchant’s National Bank. In 1885, he hired architect Arthur Little to expand and remodel the house in the Colonial Revival style. Emmerton was the father of Caroline O. Emmerton, the philanthropist and preservationist who established the House of the Seven Gables Settlement Association.

Ransom F. Taylor House (1907)

by Dan//Colonial Revival, Houses, Worcester

The house at 6 Oak Street in Worcester was built in 1906-1907. It was the home of Ransom F. Taylor, son of Ransom C. Taylor (d.1910), a wealthy real estate developer who became Worcester’s largest property owner. According to Historic Homes and Institutions and Genealogical and Personal Memoirs of Worcester County, Massachusetts, Vol. II (1907), Ransom Frederick Taylor

was born in Worcester[.] He married Virginia Byrd Chapman, of York, Pennsylvania. He was educated at the Highland Military Academy, Worcester, and Phillips Andover Academy. He has for a number of years been associated with his father in business and has shared the management of his property largely. In recent years he himself has been a large investor in real estate and is accounted as one of the shrewdest and most accurate judges of the values of real estate in the city.

The house was purchased by Becker College in 1955 and is now a dormitory called Merrill Hall, named for civic leader and trustee of the college, Everett E. Merrill.