Category: Colonial Revival

John M. Cook House (1884)

by Dan//Colonial Revival, Houses, Lenox, Shingle Style

Transitional in style between the Queen Anne/Shingle style and the Colonial Revival, the house at 120 Main Street in Lenox was built in 1884 by John M. Cook, a farmer and manager for E.J. Woolsey. He sold the house in 1886 and it became known as “The Willows,” a property rented out to summer visitors. In 1905 it was purchased by Father William F. Grace and in 1912 became the rectory for St. Ann Catholic Church. Later in the twentieth century, the house was sold and is now home to Roche Funeral Home.

Tilton Library (1916)

by Dan//Colonial Revival, Deerfield, Libraries, Neoclassical

The Village Library Association was founded in South Deerfield in 1871 and in 1893 it became the South Deerfield Village Library, supported by town funds. The library had several homes, moving from a room in a private building to a newly erected room in the Congregational Chapel in 1876, it moved again in 1906 to the ground floor of Tilton’s Grocery Store. Chauncey B. Tilton, a local grocer, had died in 1900. The Supreme Court of Massachusetts later ruled that money he had left for charitable purposes could be used for literary or educational purposes. This enabled the construction of Tilton Library, built in 1915-1916 as a permanent home for the South Deerfield Village Library. In the late twentieth century, Tilton Library merged with Old Deerfield’s Dickinson Library to become the town of Deerfield’s public library.

F.W. Lathrop House (1899)

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

F.W. Lathrop was a Springfield real estate dealer. In 1899, he supervised the construction of his own house at 188 Sumner Street from plans executed by Carroll H. Pratt, who was the assistant of architect Louis Frank Newman. The house has an American Foursquare form with Colonial Revival and Neoclassical architectural features. The house later became the first home of Sinai Temple, which moved to a new building at 1100 Dickinson Street in 1950. The house was next home to Lubavitcher Yeshiva Academy and then to an artist who ran “The Mansion House” art school in his home. For 17 years the house was owned by the Griffin family and most recently by an owner who in 2003 opened a bed-and-breakfast in the house called the Lathrop House B&B, which closed last year.

Chesterwood: The House (1901)

by Dan//Colonial Revival, Houses, Stockbridge

In 1896, sculptor Daniel Chester French purchased the Warner farm in Stockbridge. Naming his new estate Chesterwood, he soon built his studio next to the C. 1820 farmhouse. In 1901 French replaced the farmhouse with a new Georgian Revival residence designed by Henry Bacon. Like the studio, also designed by Bacon, the house is covered with stucco that is studded with marble and coal chips. The sitting room is a replica of the Best Parlor in the French family homestead in Chester, New Hampshire. Chesterwood was inherited by French’s daughter, Margaret French Cresson (1889-1973), who was also a sculptor. She donated Chesterwood to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Continue reading “Chesterwood: The House (1901)”

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)”

Salem Five Cents Savings Bank (1892)

by Dan//Banks, Colonial Revival, Salem

The Salem Five Cents Savings Bank, known as the “Nickel Bank,” because deposits started at 5 cents, was founded in 1855. The bank’s building at 210 Essex Street in Salem, designed by an unknown architect, was built in 1892, with later modifications. The bank is now known as Salem Five. The bank building was constructed to complement the Ezekiel Hersey Derby House, which once stood next door. That c. 1800 house, later known as the Maynes Block, was planned by Charles Bulfinch with interior work by Samuel McIntire. The house was removed in the early 1970s and replaced by the bank’s modern wing, designed by Oscar Padjen. Architectural elements from the house’s interior are now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.