Located at 61 Washington Road, in the Forest Park Heights section of Springfield, is the F. Nichols House, a colonial revival-style residence, built in 1896. From 1905 to 1955, it was the home of Thornton W. Burgess (1874-1965). A conservationist and author, Burgess wrote Old Mother West Wind and many other children’s books.
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.
Happy Halloween! Today we feature an appropriately Gothic house. The house at 24 William Street in Worcester was built c. 1875. Its first resident was George Cobb, a fish and oyster merchant (his fish market was at 135 Front Street). The house is now divided into apartments.
The house at 38 Broad Street in Westfield was built in 1873 by Noah Strong, a local contractor. The architecture of the house reflects an amalgam of styles. The town purchased the house in 1909 to use it as a vocational school. For Westfield’s 250th Anniversary celebration in 1919, the building was used for “The Hostess House and Loan Exhibit,” under the direction of the art committee of the Women’s Club of Westfield. According to The History of the Celebration of the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Incorporation of the Town of Westfield Massachusetts, August 31, September 1, 2, 5, 1919:
Here tea was served every day to thousands of guests, who were received by hostesses in quaint, old costumes.
The rooms of the house were arranged for the occasion in a colonial style with many antiques, early portraits and family heirlooms on display. A “Museum Room” featured relics of past wars, including the recently concluded First World War. In 1920, American Legion Post 124 began leasing the building from the city and purchased it in 1962. The second floor was made into a meeting hall in 1928.
The Kyle Estate, also known as the Rosbrook-Kyle House, is an interesting Victorian residence at 18 Park Street in the village of Florence in Northampton. It was originally constructed as a one-and-a-half story Gothic cottage around 1865. The land on which the house was built was purchased by Francis O. Rosbrook in 1850 and passed through three other owners before it was purchased in 1844 by Oscar N. Kyle, treasurer and manager of the Florence Machine Company. He hired local architect Charles H. Jones to remodel the cottage, which was elevated one story. The front porch on the ground floor features Eastlake elements and the ornament of the porch on the second floor suggests Middle Eastern design. A three-story octagonal tower was also added at the southwestern corner of the house. The altered house combines different architectural styles, with the Gothic style retained on the original Gothic section (now the second floor and attic gable). The second floor and part of the gable have board-and-batten siding, while wood shingles cover the third story of the tower and the upper section of the gable. The house is now divided into apartments. Continue reading “Rosbrook-Kyle House (1884)”
The Foot-Wallace House is a Gothic Revival cottage-style structure built in 1844 at 201 Maple Street in Springfield. Its originally wood exterior walls were covered in stucco in 1898, the same year an orange tile roof was added. Later part of the campus of the MacDuffie School, the house‘s tile roof sustained major damage from the Springfield tornado of June 1, 2011. The above photograph was taken before the tornado.
The house at 225 Elm Street, at the corner of Franklin Street, was built around 1910 by Elbridge G. Southwick (1842-1925). The house was constructed on the former homestead of Henry Edwards, which Southwick purchased in 1906.