Williston Hall at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley burned down in 1917 and was replaced by the Cornelia Clapp Laboratory in 1924. The Gothic Revival building was named for Cornelia Clapp, a member of the Mount Holyoke class of 1871 and a professor of zoology at the college from 1872 to 1916.
There are a number of interesting castles in Massachusetts. Herreshoff Castle, at 2 Crocker Park in Marblehead, was built in 1926 by artist Waldo Ballard and his wife. Ballard restored many old houses in Marblehead. The castle was originally called Castle Brattahlid and was intended to recreate Erik the Red‘s castle at Brattahlíð (“Steep Slope”), in Greenland. In 1945, the Ballards sold the castle to L. Francis Herreshoff, son the yacht designer Nathanael Herreshoff. After Herreshoff died in 1972, he left the castle to a longtime assistant. The present owners bought it in 1990 and operate the castle‘s similarly Gothic-style attached carriage house as a one-unit bed & breakfast.
The Seminary Building at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley was destroyed by fire in 1896. The following year, a chapel was built on the site, called Mary Lyon Chapel and connected to Mary Lyon Hall. The Chapel was renovated and much enlarged in 1938 with a donation from Emily Abbey Gill and was renamed Abbey Memorial Chapel. It was converted in 1999 into the Abbey Interfaith Sanctuary. Since 2009, the Chapel has been open to the public for weddings.
In 1858, a group of parishioners from St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Salem established Grace Church, which would be constructed at 385 Essex Street later that year. The parishioners wanted to found a second Episcopal Church in Salem that would be closer to their homes in the western part of the city. By 1924, the original wooden Gothic building of Grace Church was deemed no longer adequate. It was structurally unsound–one could stand against the wall and shake the whole building. In 1926, a new church was built on the same site. Initial plans for a Georgian Revival structure were eventually changed and the completed church was designed by architect Philip Horton Smith in the Gothic Revival style. Three years later, the church was connected to an adjacent Federal-style residence, Burrell House, which is used as a parish house.
A striking landmark on the campus of Amherst College is Stearns Steeple, which stands in front of the Mead Art Museum. It is the only surviving part of the College Church, built in 1873. A gift of William F. Stearns, son of College president William A. Stearns, the Gothic church was designed by William A. Potter of New York. The Steeple’s bells, cast in 1871, were given by George Howe as a memorial to Amherst men lost in the Civil War. Stearns’ gift required that the building only be used for religious purposes, but Sunday services were transferred to the College Chapel in 1933 and discontinued in 1946, with the result that the church was no longer used regularly. It was razed in 1949 to make way for new buildings, although the steeple was spared as a monument to the church. To become a freestanding structure, the steeple was enclosed using materials from the demolished church.
According to The History of the Town of Amherst (1896):
Chauncey W. Lessey, son of Alanson, was born in New Fairfield, Conn. in 1837. He came to Amherst in 1865, and engaged in business as a building contractor. He built the First church, Grace church, Walker hall, Palmer’s block and many dwelling-houses. He was for five years chairman of the board of selectmen and for many years one of the assessors. He represented the town in the General Court in 1876. He was a leading member of Grace church. For several years he was a trustee of the Amherst Savings bank. He married, Melvina Swanger. He died Aug. 26, 1877.
He also built his own stylistically eclectic home, at 94 Lessey Street, about 1870. After Lessey’s widow moved out of the house, it was purchased by Levi Stockbridge in 1886. Stockbridge was a farmer and agricultural scientist from Hadley who was instrumental in the early history of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, now UMASS. He helped clear the land for the school and was its first farm superintendent (1867-1869). He was later a full professor (1872-1879), acting president (when President William Smith Clark left for Japan in 1876), and fifth president (1880-1882). Stockbridge also had a hand in the development of the Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment Station. As a scientist, he held patents for his experiments in fertilizer development, nutrient leaching and soil mulching and wrote Experiments in Feeding Plants (1876). He also served in the state legislature and as a Selectman of Amherst.
Northampton‘s distinctively Gothic City Hall was designed by William Fenno Pratt and was built in 1849-1850. Conceived as a novelty, the building was in danger of being torn down in 1923, but was saved when voters decided to remodel rather than completely replace it. One result of that remodeling was the loss of the building‘s second floor auditorium, which had hosted many famous speakers and entertainers over the years. Further restorations of City Hall occurred in 1985 and 1993.
