North Easton Savings Bank and Post Office // 1904

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Located across the street from the iconic Oakes Ames Memorial Hall and the Ames Free Library, the North Easton Savings Bank and Post Office building perfectly compliments the Richardsonian Romanesque enclave found in the village, but it was not designed by the renowned architect whom the style is named after. The building was constructed in 1904 from plans by the firm of Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, a Boston-based firm that grew out of Henry Hobson Richardson’s practice after his death in 1886. For this building, which served as a bank and local post office, the firm employed many of the hallmarks of the Richardsonian Romanesque style, just in a refined, less elaborate style. The building has walls of rough-faced granite ashlar blocks with brownstone trim and engaged columns. The three-bay front façade contains the centered entrance, recessed within a wide brownstone arch in the signature Richardsonian manner. The bank moved out of the building in the 1960s, and the building has served as professional offices ever-since, and is a contributing resource in the iconic enclave of buildings in North Easton.

Oliver Ames High School // 1895

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Not far from and predating the North Easton Grammar School, the Oliver Ames High School in Easton, Massachusetts, is one of many civic buildings gifted to the community by members of the Ames Family. In 1893, Oliver Ames (1831-1895), a grandson of the Ames Shovel Works founder Oliver Ames, and son of Oakes Ames, offered to fund the construction of a new high school building if the town would pay the cost of digging its foundation and grading the site. They accepted. Oliver Ames hired Boston architect, Carl Fehmer, to design the school in Easton, after he had a positive experience with him as consulting architect to the Commonwealth for the extension to the Massachusetts State House years prior while serving as Governor. The refined Colonial Revival school building features a central pavilion with an entrance set within an ornate stone architrave with a Classical entablature with central pediment. The high school was outgrown and for years, became the town’s middle school until a consolidated school was built elsewhere. In the 1990s, the town sold the Oliver Ames High School to a developer, along with preservation restrictions, with the structure converted to apartments. A great example of adaptive reuse!

Oliver Ames Jr. House // 1864

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Located on Main Street in Easton, Massachusetts, this stately Italianate style mansion stands as a reminder of the wealth and status of the Ames Family in the 19th and 20th centuries. The residence was built in 1864 for Oliver Ames Jr. (1807-1877), who along with his brother, entered into the family business of Oliver Ames & Sons, shovel manufacturers. It was a prosperous time to be in the shovel business, as the nation was experiencing a dramatic expansion of canals, railroads, and other major infrastructure, all of which were built by men swinging shovels. From this, Oliver Ames also served as president of Union Pacific Railroad while the railroad was busy building the First transcontinental railroad in North America, making him an immense fortune. For his residence in his hometown, Oliver Ames hired the Boston architect, George Snell, to design this mansion, which was called Unity Close by its owner. Square in plan, the residence features a symmetrical facade, elaborate window hoods, bracketed cornice, and a hipped roof capped by a belvedere.

North Easton Grammar School // 1916

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Built in 1916, the North Easton Grammar School was a gift to the inhabitants of the town of Easton by three of the children of Frederick Lothrop Ames (1835-1893) and Rebecca Caroline Blair Ames, in memory of their parents. The gift to the town was made to alleviate overcrowding in the village’s existing schools and consolidate them in a handsome, modern school building. For the new school, the Ames heirs hired architects, Charles Munroe Baker and Stanley Brampton Parker, who formed an architectural office in the early 20th century. The two-and-a-half-story red brick school building is rectangular in plan and is capped by a hipped roof. Sited upon a rise on the town’s Main Street, its grandiose scale and design showcases the wealth and influence the Ames Family had on this small town. Eventually, the town schools consolidated into larger, Modern buildings and the former North Easton Grammar School was converted to professional offices.

Wayside Estate – Easton Town Offices // 1912

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One of the many grand estates built in Easton, Massachusetts, by members of the Ames Family, Wayside is the last constructed as the Gilded Age was coming to an end. Mary Shreve Ames (1867-1955) was the daughter of Frederick Lothrop Ames and the granddaughter of Oliver Ames Jr., President of the Union Pacific Railroad and great-grand-daughter of Oliver Ames Sr. who founded the Ames Shovel Works in Easton in 1803. In 1912, Mary hired Boston architect, Guy Lowell, to design her country estate in her ancestral home of Easton. The grand Georgian Revival style estate has two main elevations, a grand entrance accessed by a circular drive, and the street elevation, which is more restrained. Four years after completing Wayside, in 1916, at the age of forty-nine, Marry married Louis Adams Frothingham, a Harvard graduate who had served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives as Speaker of the House before he was elected Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts in 1908 and re-elected in 1910. After Mary’s death in 1955, the Wayside Estate was placed on the market as the family sought an owner who could properly care for it. At the time, Easton’s Town Offices were overcrowded, and after discussions with the town officials, the Ames heirs donated Wayside and the surrounding property to the town with the restriction was that no building would be constructed from the front line of the house to Elm Street, obscuring its view. Wayside remains a great example of the Ames Family’s generosity and the impact that the wealthy family had on this small town.

Ames Free Library // 1879

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One of the most architecturally significant library buildings in the United States, the Ames Free Library in the small town of Easton, Massachusetts, is a landmark example of the Richardsonian Romanesque style designed by its namesake, Henry Hobson Richardson. The library in the village of North Easton was funded as part of the will of Oliver Ames Jr., who left $50,000 for the construction of a library for his native town. The request was carried out by Ames’ children, Frederick Lothrop Ames and Helen Angier Ames, who hired Henry Hobson Richardson to design the new structure. Richardson had recently completed the Trinity Church in Boston and was designing a library in Woburn at the time the Ames Family first commissioned him to put Easton on the map. Richardson would later design four other buildings in Easton for members of the Ames Family, including the Oakes Ames Memorial Building next door to the library. The Ames family also contracted architect Stanford White for the fireplace in the reading room and sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens for the decorative medallions of the library’s benefactor. Construction started on the library in 1878 and it was completed in 1879, but the library did not open until 1883, possibly due to cost overruns. Essentially rectangular in plan, the Ames Library features three main masses: a longitudinal block; a stair tower with a pyramidal roof; and larger gable entry projection. The library is built of ashlar granite blocks and brownstone trim, which frames the openings. Over fifty years after the library was completed, the 1931 children’s wing was added onto the rear. The gift of Fanny Holt Ames, the addition was designed by Shepley, Rutan, and Coolidge, who continued Richardson’s architectural firm upon his death in 1886. The addition of brick showcases how materiality and certain design changes can effectively showcase the evolution of a building without detracting from its original design and integrity.

Edgar and Julia Belcher House & Carriage Barn // 1896

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While the town of Easton, Massachusetts, may be known for its iconic Henry Hobson Richardson designed buildings and Ames Family mansions, there are many other houses and buildings that warrant a closer look! This is the Edgar and Julia Belcher House & Carriage Barn on Purchase Street in Easton. The residence and corresponding carriage barn behind were built around 1896 for Edgar Belcher and his wife, Julia Rankin Belcher, who acquired the land from Julia’s father, who owned the surrounding property as a farm. The couple had one child who did not survive infancy and the property was sold out of the family. The residence and barn retain their architectural integrity, including the shingle siding and porch at the house, and the cupola and original hay door in the barn.

Oakes Ames Memorial Hall // 1881

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Located in the center of North Easton, Massachusetts, the landmark Oakes Ames Memorial Hall is the work of famed architect, Henry Hobson Richardson, and among one of the finest of his buildings. In 1879, the children of Oakes Ames (1804-1873), an extremely wealthy businessman, industrialist and congressman from Easton, commissioned the great American architect to design a Memorial Hall as a tribute to their father. Richardson, the architect of Boston’s beloved Trinity Church in Copley Square, responded with this picturesque masterpiece in his eponymous Richardsonian Romanesque architectural style, with walls of rusticated granite that are articulated with contrasting brownstone at the arches, window and door surrounds, and deep band courses. The Ames Memorial Hall is sited atop a rocky outcropping with the building accessed by a grand brownstone stair and landscaping designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. The building is relatively square in form and features a prominent corner tower, an arcaded entry of five massive arches on squat columns, and a steeply peaked roof finished in red terracotta. Often overlooked, the frieze at the top of the tower is lined with ornamental carvings of the signs of the Zodiac in brownstone. The building was provided to the Town of Easton by the Ames Family “for all the ordinary purposes of a town hall”, but it was never used for its intended purpose as the town hall, and has mainly served as a meeting space for groups and events. The Town of Easton does a commendable job preserving these nationally significant Richardson-designed landmarks for all to enjoy.

Windham Train Depot // 1849

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Tucked beside the rail trail on Depot Road, this historic depot is a quiet reminder of the era when the railroad shaped life in towns just like Windham, New Hampshire. The structure was built in 1849 by the Manchester & Lawrence Railroad, which serviced the community through 1980 when the last train rolled through. In the 1870’s the Depot Area was the heartbeat of the town with two railroads intersecting at the station called “Windham Junction”. The Boston & Maine Railroad ran both the Manchester to Lawrence and Worcester, Nashua, Portland lines at the time that the company ran one of the busiest tracks in the country. The Depot became an official Historic Landmark in town in 2003, and today visitors can stroll past the surviving depot buildings, a blue railcar, and placards explaining what the area looked like in its railroad days.

West Windham Union Hall // 1880

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Located on Anderson Road in West Windham, New Hampshire, Union Hall remains as a significant vernacular building that typified many of its purpose in rural communities all across New England in the 19th century. Union Hall was constructed in 1880 to serve as the literary, social, and religious hub for the villagers of West Windham, an area more distant from the center of town. One organization which utlitzed the building for its meetings, the Neighborhood Club, was founded in 1881 by a local pastor. The club functioned primarily as a ladies aid society and had also maintained the hall for events and fundraisers.

Campbell Farmhouse // 1868

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The Campbell Farmhouse on Kendall Pond Road in the town of Windham, New Hampshire, is a characteristic example of an Italianate style farmhouse with a shallow pitched roof, L-shaped footprint, and two stories with a shallow pitched roof and bracketed cornice with overhanging eaves. The residence was built by 1868 for its original owner, Deacon Samuel Campbell Sr. (1819-1902) and the farmland backed up to the Beaver Brook behind the residence. When the property was threatened for redevelopment and demolition, the community banded together and voted for the Town of Windham to purchase the property. A feasibility study was conducted in 2015, which resulted in the restoration and sale of the Campbell Farmhouse to private owners and the preservation of the surrounding marsh and farmland into publicly accessible conservation land.

Windham Presbyterian Church // 1834

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The area now known as the town of Windham, New Hampshire, was colonized and settled by Scots-Irish immigrants in 1719. Many were from Londonderry in present-day North Ireland and they settled in Southern New Hampshire establishing a colony, which was closely tied to the Presbyterian Church, similar to in their homeland. An early church was built, but the congregation preferred a central location. When a new meetinghouse was built in 1798, the congregation utilized the building for its sermons. Being a town-owned building, the townhouse was used for town meetings and church services for any denomination wishing to worship there. There was dissolution of church from state in New Hampshire in 1819 with passage of legislation that ended support of churches through taxation. In 1833, the congregation sought their own house of worship and purchased a lot nearby and sold pews to area families to help fund the building. Completed in 1834, the Windham Presbyterian Church has long served as a landmark in town. At its peak in 1845, the church had 250 members out of the total population of the town at 818. In 1874, extensive repairs were made to the church, with the windows replaced and modified to accommodate the lowered gallery. The Greek Revival style building with its Italianate alterations (round arched windows and door and window hoods) has been lovingly preserved by its congregation for nearly 200 years.

Searles School and Chapel // 1907

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In 1907, as wealthy benefactor Edward Francis Searles (1841-1920) was building his massive castle in Windham, New Hampshire, he also was overseeing the construction of this building, which served as a school and chapel. The Searles School and Chapel is one of a set of remarkable commissions designed by architect, Henry Vaughan, for the multi-millionaire Edward Searles, who is said to have developed a taste for medieval architecture during his early employment as an interior designer in New York City and travels to Europe with his wife, whom he inherited his fortune from. As the land upon which his estate would be built on was occupied in part by town-owned land and a rural district schoolhouse, Searles offered to exchange the land and build nearby on a piece of property where he would erect a school and chapel for the town. They agreed. The building served as a joint schoolhouse and chapel until the early 1970’s. When it no longer served its intended purpose it was threatened with demolition, but averted that fate when its restoration was funded and undertaken by the Windham Bicentennial Commission. The old Chapel is now rented out for private weddings and events.

Searles Castle – Stanton Harcourt Manor // 1907

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One of the most enchanting and unique buildings in the state of New Hampshire, can be found tucked away in the woods in the town of Windham. This is Searles Castle. Built between 1907-1915, the massive castle was built for Edward Francis Searles (1841-1920), who was born in Methuen, Massachusetts, to middle-class parents who worked in a local cotton mill and operated a small farm. As a young child, Edward’s father died and he would leave school to work in a nearby cotton mill at just 12 years old. As a young man, he eventually moved to Boston, where for the next twelve years, Edward sold furniture and used his savings to pay off the mortgage on the family farm. Edward travelled to Europe and upon returning, he secured a job with Herter Brothers, a New York interior decorating firm. In 1881, Searles decided to go to California where he would take some time to call on some of the very wealthy clients of Herter Brothers. One of those clients was Ms. Mary Sherwood Hopkins of San Francisco, a wealthy widow of Mark Hopkins, a railroad tycoon who died in 1878 and left his wife with a massive fortune. Mary had no children of her own and would eventually marry her designer, Edward Searles, who was 22 years her junior. Mary changed her will to leave all her wealth to her new husband. It was at that time that Edward Searles started building several large mansions all over New England, including the massive castle in Windham. Mary died in 1891. For his castle in New Hampshire, Searles hired English-born architect Henry Vaughan, to furnish designs for a building to replicate a Tudor mansion in Stanton Harcourt, England. It is built of cut granite, fieldstone, and dark red sandstone, most of which came from Searles’ own quarries in nearby Pelham, New Hampshire. Edward spent most of his time at his estate in Methuen, and after his death in 1920, the property was inherited by his secretary and later deeded to The Sisters of Mercy in 1952. Due to the incredible costs maintaining this architecturally significant castle and expansive grounds, the Sisters of Mercy relocated to another building on the grounds and have rented the Castle for weddings and other events.

Armstrong Memorial Building // 1899

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The Armstrong Memorial Building is the first purpose-built library building serving the town of Windham, New Hampshire, and is an eclectic example of late 19th century architecture combining elements of the Shingle and Craftsman styles. Built in 1899, it was the town’s first purpose-built library building, a role it played until 1997, when a new library was built elsewhere in town. The building is constructed of random laid fieldstone with a broad hipped roof with corbeled eaves and a shingled gabled entrance. Local architect, William Weare Dinsmoor, furnished plans for the building which has long been one of the beloved structures in Windham. Its namesake, George Washington Armstrong (1836-1901), funded the building for the town but it is unclear who it memorializes. After the new Nesmith Library was built in 1997, the building has been repurposed into a museum detailing the town’s history.