Colonial Revival

Wakeman Memorial Building // 1913

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

The Wakeman Memorial Building in Fairfield, CT, is one of a few buildings erected in the Southport area during the early twentieth century. The boldly proportioned central portico is supported by square Tuscan columns with an Ionic fretwork entablature and denticulated cornice, and topped by a spindled parapet and an elliptical shaped Palladian window on the second story. The red tiled gambrel roof, splaying beyond the exterior walls, is bracketed by decorative modillions. The building was constructed in 1913 through funds by Miss Frances Wakeman in memory of her grandfather, Jesup Wakeman, at a cost of fifty thousand dollars. The building was used by the Boys and Girls Club of Southport as a club house, offering sewing classes, a reading room, and offices. The building was converted to a home after the Boys and Girls Club moved to a larger facility.

Augustus Jennings House // c.1830

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

Walking around Southport Village in the town of Fairfield, Connecticut, transports you to an early-mid 19th century town with large Federal and Greek Revival homes overlooking Southport Harbor and the Long Island Sound. This home on Westway Road was built around 1830 for Augustus Jennings (1814-1886), the son of Captain Abraham Gould Jennings. Augustus became a carriage maker in Southport before founding Jennings Brothers, a paper manufacturing company; which in 1867, began to produce Japanese paper products. The Jennings House was originally located near the Pequot Library, but was relocated in 1899, which was likely when the central shingled gable at the roof with Palladian window was added.

Verna Farm // 1892

Buildings of New England1 Comment

In Fairfield, Connecticut, land owned by Timothy Dwight, a minister and eighth President of Yale, a large farm once stood. The year after he was appointed to his position at Yale, he sold his farm Verna Farm, in 1796 to Isaac Bronson. The farm was eventually inherited by his grandson, Frederic Bronson. Dwight’s eighteenth-century house was eventually torn down in 1891 by Frederic’s son, Frederic Bronson, a wealthy New York City lawyer and socialite, who was included in Ward McAllister‘s “Four Hundred“, purported to be an index of New York’s best families, published in The New York Times. In 1892, Bronson hired starchitect Richard Morris Hunt, one of the greatest American architects of all time, to design a new country estate here. In 1933, the Bronson estate was acquired by W. A. Morschhauser, who had the house remodeled and made smaller in 1900; removing the third story and reducing the number of rooms from 42 to 13! Since 1949, the property has been occupied by the Fairfield Country Day School. The windmill as part of the estate was eventually gifted to the Town of Fairfield.

Oliver Ames High School // 1896

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

I’m starting to see a trend in Easton, almost everything is named after the Ames Family! In 1893, Oliver Ames (1831-1895), a grandson of shovel company 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 building its foundation and grading the site. While governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (1887-90), Ames had hired Boston architect Carl Fehmer as consulting architect to the State for the extension to the Massachusetts State House, and it was Fehmer who secured the design contract for the new school in Easton. 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 school was outgrown in 1957 and became the town’s middle school, outgrown again in the 1990s. The town sold the school to a developer with preservation restrictions and it is now used as apartments!

North Easton Fire Station // 1905

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

In the early 20th century, the village of North Easton, Massachusetts saw large growth, in large part by the Ames Family. The town had previously had a volunteer fire station, but due to the development, a permanent fire department was needed. In 1904, Mary S. Ames (later Mrs. Louis Frothingham) donated land for the purposes of building a fire station; across from the Ames Shovel Works. The fire station, completed in 1905, remained active until 1968, when the town’s modern firehouse that could accommodate larger fire apparatus was constructed. In 1991, the former fire station became the home of the Children’s Museum in Easton, which it remains to this day.

Thetford Academy, White Building // 1942

Buildings of New England2 Comments

Thetford Academy opened in February 1819, after the constitution of Vermont called for free elementary schools in each town, a school in each county for studies above the elementary level, and one university for the state. These schools prepared students in classical languages, mathematics, “natural philosophy,” and the arts for entrance into colleges and universities, and careers in ministry, law, medicine, and teaching. By the time Thetford Academy was founded, girls were being admitted to some academies (usually in the summer term) for studies which were advanced beyond the common schools, but which were not intended to prepare for college. Thetford Academy admitted both boys and girls from its founding. The school thrived beginning on it’s first day of classes, growing almost annually with new buildings constructed to house new classrooms and dormitories.

The first academic building, erected in 1818 by Fitch, was crowned by a bell tower and featured separate entries for boys and girls. It was destroyed by fire on November 14, 1942. Fueled by high winds, the fire also destroyed the girls’ dormitory and the library. Undeterred, the school rebuilt nearby beginning with this Colonial Revival building, known as the White Building. Later buildings were added to create the campus we see today.

Strong’s Block // 1896

Buildings of New England3 Comments

William C. Strong, a prominent local citizen who resided nearby, had this stylish commercial block built to serve the expanding population of the village which eventually became known as Waban. After the completion of the Waban Train Station, the demand for neighborhood retail became apparent and William Strong was an early developer to realize this. He hired Lewis Bacon, an architect who resided nearby, to design the commercial block. The result is a stunning Dutch Revival building with gables showcasing stepped parapets. The upper stories were apparently used as apartments when completed. Notwithstanding Strong’s efforts, the Waban commercial district developed rather slowly. It was not until 1924 that the row of one-story shops was added to its right. The addition was designed by Edward B. Stratton, who followed suit with Tudor and Jacobean motifs, to compliment the Dutch Revival block.

Lewis H. Bacon House // 1892

Buildings of New England2 Comments

Another architect-designed home for their own use in Waban Village in Newton, is this house on Chestnut Street. Built in 1892, the Colonial Revival home is set far off the street with a commanding presence and symmetrical facade. The home was designed and occupied by Lewis Howard Bacon (1857-1941), a former chairman of the Newton board of appeals and a member of the school committee and the board of aldermen in Newton, also a practicing architect. He studied architecture in the office of Samuel Lane, architect of Cleveland, 1877-80, when he moved to Boston as a draughtsman and supervisor of construction for the firm of Sturgis & Brigham, 1880-1886. For four years he was a member of the firm of Morrison & Bacon (1888-1892), before embarking on his own practice in an office in Downtown Boston. He resided in this home until his health failed and he moved to a nursing home where he died.

St. Joseph’s Church // 1952

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

The congregation’s second sanctuary, this Colonial Revival church building was constructed in 1952 for the large Polish population in town. In the 1890s, Polish immigrants settled in rural Suffield in large numbers, many working on tobacco farms. The St. Joseph’s Polish Society was formed in 1905, with increasing demand for a sanctuary to worship. The lot at 140 S. Main Street was purchased in 1916 and the stable was converted to a church, with the home converted to the rectory. After WWII, the stable was clearly insufficient, and the site was cleared for a larger sanctuary which we see today.

Suffield Academy-Memorial Building // 1854

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

Initially established as the Connecticut Literary Institute (the school was renamed Suffield School in 1916 and then Suffield Academy in 1937), the mission of this school with Baptist roots was to educate young men for the ministry. As the Connecticut Literary Institute was the only high school in Suffield, the town tax dollars paid for local students to attend. Although town and local Baptists served a major role in getting the school underway, the founders soon moved away from a denominational focus. Built for the Institute in 1854, this large brick academic building was designed in the Italianate style with brackets and decorative brickwork at the cornice. In 1950, the school “Colonialized” the campus beginning with the Memorial Building, removing the Victorian flair for a more traditional Colonial Revival appearance. They also did the same with Fuller Hall next door.

Suffield Academy-Fuller Hall // 1873

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

The Connecticut Literary Institute opened in Suffield, CT, with Baptist roots with the goal to educate young men for the ministry. Later rebranding as Suffield Academy, the school was the only high school in town, so it received tax revenue from the town to allow boys outside the Baptist faith to study there. Later, with changing views of women’s right to education, the school allowed women into the school in 1843. Forty years later, the school constructed this building, then known as the ‘Women’s Building’ just next door to the 1854 Memorial Hall. The Second Empire style academic building was heavily modified in 1953, just like its counterpart next door in the Colonial Revival style, adding a cupola and removing the stunning mansard roof.

Gallup House // 1894

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

William A. Gallup was born October 28, 1851, in North Adams. He worked primarily for the Arnold Print Works beginning in 1870 before becoming a charter member, elected clerk, and director of the company. He went on to work for and own a few more mills in North Adams by the end of the 19th century. Gallup hired H. Neill Wilson, a Western MA based architect to design a mansion for his family on Church Street, near his father in-law and business partners (A.C. Houghton) house.

North Adams Post Office // 1911

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

North Adams in Western Massachusetts was incorporated as a city in 1895, separating from Adams, MA in 1873. The town was flourishing as an industrial center due to it’s location on the confluence of the Hoosic River’s two branches here. Thanks to the Arnold Print Works (now Mass MoCA), the town’s population doubled in twenty years after incorporation. Due to this, the United States Post Office and Treasury Department decided to build a large post office, a size that would allow the growing city to fill into. The Georgian Revival post office building is credited to James A. Wetmore, who was actually not an architect, but an attorney and Executive Officer of the Office of the Supervising Architect, within the Treasury Department (what a title). He later became the Supervising Architect without any known education in design. As Supervising Architect, he managed a staff of nearly 1700 architects and draftsmen who designed at least 2000 federal government buildings, including courthouses and post offices. The North Adams Post Office, remains a landmark of a city which has sadly seen a declining population every decade since 1940.

William Jefferds House // 1804

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

William Jefferds Jr. was born August 30, 1779 in Kennebunk. On October 25, 1802 he married Sarah (Sally) Walker who was born in Arundel on March 4, 1783. Twenty years later, in 1803, Captain Daniel Walker gifted his son-in-law, Captain William Jefferds, Jr., “80 square rods of land, with love and affection” on the lane leading to Walker’s Wharf (he also gifted land to his other son in law, Nathaniel Lord. In 1804 the 2-story, Federal-style building that now houses Captain Jefferds Inn was built as their private home.

Capt. Jefferds was a ship owner and captain in the West Indian trade; he later became a merchant in Kennebunkport. He and Sarah had 11 children, and their family was considered one of the most aristocratic in Kennebunkport. Following Sarah’s death at age 88 in 1871 (her husband had predeceased her in 1851), the household furniture was sold at public auction and the home sold outside of the family.

The house was a two-story hipped roof Federal style dwelling, somewhat outdated by the latter half of the 19th century. By the 1880s, the Agnew Family who owned it at the time, had the home remodeled with Colonial Revival detailing, including the portico and large central dormer. The home was eventually converted to an inn, and is known as the Captain Jefferds Inn.

Check the Inn’s website for more images and history!

Colony Hotel // 1914

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

One of the larger hotels in Kennebunkport, the Colonial Revival Colony Hotel, built in 1914, provides historic charm with views of the Kennebunk River and Atlantic Ocean. Owner Ruel W. Norton had the new hotel built on the site of the Ocean Bluff Hotel (1873, burned 1898), to attract summer people, many of which stayed for months at a time. The Colony was originally called Breakwater Court until 1947, when George Boughton purchased Breakwater Court and changed the name to The Colony Hotel to complement their Florida property, The Colony Hotel in Delray Beach Florida. The hotel was designed by John Calvin Stevens, who lived in Maine and designed an estimated 1000+ buildings in the state, many of which in the Shingle or Colonial Revival styles.