Category: Colonial Revival

Kirby Memorial Theater (1938)

by Dan//Amherst, Collegiate, Colonial Revival, Theaters

Kirby Memorial Theater at Amherst College was built with funds from a charitable trust set up by Dr. Ellwood R. Kirby (1854-1920). Kirby, a Philadelphia physician, is depicted administering anesthetic to the surgery patient in Thomas Eakins 1889 painting The Agnew Clinic. The Theater was built in 1938-1939 and was designed by James Kellum Smith of McKim, Mead & White, with the help of S.R. McCandless, a theater designer. The James W. Boyden House, which had served as a college boarding house and cafeteria, was moved from the site in 1937 to 58 Woodside Street to make way for the Theater.

Jones Library, Amherst (1928)

by Dan//Amherst, Colonial Revival, Libraries

Jones Library, 43 Amity Street in Amherst, was begun in 1927 and dedicated in 1928. An earlier library had been located in the town hall. The Jones Library, named for its benefactor, Samuel Minot Jones, was incorporated in 1919. From 1921 to 1926, the library rented rooms in the Amherst House, which stood at the corner of South Pleasant and Amity Streets. After the Amherst House burned down in 1926, the library briefly moved its operations into the Whipple House on North Pleasant Street, until the current library building, built of Pelham field stone, was completed. The Jones Library has notable collections of material relating to Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost.

Baxter Marsh House (1896)

by Dan//Amherst, Colonial Revival, Houses

Baxter Marsh was a carpenter in Greenfield, who settled with his wife, Jane H. Ware Marsh, in Amherst in 1873. He built several houses in town and in 1896 he probably was the builder of his own large Georgian Revival home on Main Street. Rooms were rented out to instructors working at nearby Amherst College including, from 1918 to 1920, Robert Frost. Another tenant was literature professor John Erskine, who included reminiscences of his residence in the Marsh House in his book, The Memory of Certain Persons (1947). The Baxters’ son, Edward Baxter Marsh, attended Amherst and later continued to reside in his own house in town. The house was later used by the Amherst Record and in 1989 it was moved from 109 to 401 Main Street to make way for the new Police Department building.

The Dell (1907)

by Dan//Amherst, Colonial Revival, Houses

The Dell is a Colonial Revival house at 97 Spring Street in Amherst. It was built in 1907 for the Churchill family and, from 1950 to 1958, was the home of author Howard R. Garis (1873-1962). He was the author of the Uncle Wiggily stories, which he began writing in 1910. Garis also wrote the first 37 Tom Swift books and other stories under the name Victor Appleton, a house pseudonym used by the Stratemeyer Syndicate. Today the Dell is used as the offices of Five Colleges, Incorporated.

Glen Magna (1790)

by Dan//Colonial Revival, Danvers, Houses

Glen Magna Farms in Danvers began with a house, built in the 1790s by Jonathan Ingersoll. In 1812, the property was acquired by Capt. Joseph Peabody, wealthy Salem shipping merchant, as his gentleman’s estate. Additional acres were later acquired by the Peabody family, who occupied the estate for over a century. In 1893, Peabody’s granddaughter, Ellen Peabody Endicott, hired the Boston firm of Little, Browne and Moore to expand the house into a stylish Colonial Revival mansion. In 1926, she was awarded the Hunnewell Gold Medal from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society for the estate’s plantings. After her death the following year, her son, William Crowninshield Endicott, Jr., continued enhancing the estate until his death in 1936. In 1901, he had brought the 1793 Derby Summer House to Glen Magna. Since 1963, the house and the eleven central acres of the property have been owned by the Danvers Historical Society, which has restored the historic gardens and grounds.

Beckford-Whipple House (1739)

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

Built perhaps as early as 1739, the Beckford-Whipple House, at 2 Andover Street in Salem, was later significantly altered. In 1739, John and Rebecca Beckford deeded the house to their son, John Jr., who next left the house to his son Ebenezer in 1788. Ebenezer was probably the owner (1788-1816) who enlarged the house around 1804. The Whipple family owned the house for about a century starting in 1826. The present front facade and side porch are turn-of-the-century modifications in the Colonial Revival style.