Tag: Stephen C. Earle

Walker-White House (1879)

by Dan//Houses, Queen Anne, Worcester

Walker-White House, Worcester

The relatively early Queen Anne house at 47 Harvard Street in Worcester was designed by Stephen C. Earle. Its first resident was Benjamin Walker, a local ice merchant. With Stillman Sweester, Walker formed the company Walker & Sweester, which later became the Walker Coal and Ice Company. From 1881 into the twentieth century, the house was home to Walker’s daughter, Agnes, and her husband, Levis White. The house’s two-story porch and painted brick walls are later alterations.

United Congregational Church, Worcester (1885)

by Dan//Churches, Romanesque Revival, Worcester

Dissatisfaction over the choice of minister at the Old South Church in Worcester in 1820 led Daniel Waldo (1763-1845) to organize a new parish, originally called the Calvinist Church. The name was officially changed to Central Church in 1879. Waldo paid for the construction of the congregation’s first meetinghouse in 1823-1825. Located on Main Street, near George Street, it was later replaced by the current church, built in 1884-1885 at the corner of Salisbury Street and Institute Road. The Romanesque Revival-style Central Church, built of Longmeadow brownstone, was designed by Stephen C. Earle. When the studio of John LaFarge proved too busy to design the interiors, the church commissioned Sarah Lyman Whitman, a former student of William Morris Hunt. Central Church merged with Chestnut Street Congregational Church in 1982 to form United Congregational Church.

Christ Church Cathedral, Springfield (1876)

by Dan//Churches, Gothic, Springfield

Christ Church in Springfield began in 1817, when the Episcopalian commander of the Springfield Armory, Col. Roswell Lee, established a chapel on the second floor of a small building on the armory grounds. When a fire destroyed the main arsenal in 1824, Springfield Episcopalians worshiped at several different temporary locations until construction began in 1839 on a church at State and Dwight Streets. The church was enlarged in 1851, but further growth necessitated the building of a new church. A Norman Gothic structure of Longmeadow brownstone, it was designed by architect Stephen C. Earle of Worcester and was built on Chestnut Street in 1874-1876. Within a year, the church’s tower cracked and was dismantled for safety reasons. It was not rebuilt until 1927. In 1929, Christ Church became the Cathedral of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts.

Old Chapel, UMASS (1885)

by Dan//Amherst, Collegiate, Romanesque Revival

One of the most historic buildings on the campus of the University of Massachusetts in Amherst is the Old Chapel. This campus icon is a Richardsonian Romanesque structure, constructed of gray Pelham granite with Longmeadow brownstone trim. Designed by Stephen C. Earle, it was built in 1884-1886, when UMASS was the Massachusetts Agricultural College. It originally had a library on the first floor, a chapel above and a museum for the College’s natural history collection In 1935, the building was renovated by the WPA to house the History and English Departments. Later, it was home for the Department of Music and Performing Arts, and for the UMass Marching Band, which left the building in 1996. Since then, the interior has remained vacant, although the exterior of the Chapel was restored in 1997-1999. This included a complete re-building of the bell tower, with damaged stones being replaced by granite from the original Pelham quarry, which is still owned by Umass, and brownstone from a quarry in Utah. Continue reading “Old Chapel, UMASS (1885)”