Colonial Revival

Thayer Bird Museum // 1903

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John Eliot Thayer (1862–1933) was an amateur ornithologist and member of the wealthy Thayer Family in Lancaster, Massachusetts. Due to his family’s business dealings, John Thayer was able to turn his passion, studying birds, into one of the largest collections of stuffed birds, eggs and nests for professionals all over the country to study. John began collecting and housed his collections were in several wooden buildings close to his home in Lancaster, but when these became unsafe and crowded he built this beautiful brick building in 1903 in South Lancaster opening it to the public as a museum a year later. The Boston architectural firm of Winslow & Bigelow designed the Colonial Revival style building, with the Guastavino Fireproof Construction Company providing plans for interior spaces and likely engineering inside. Many of the leading ornithologists of the time visited the Thayer Museum and it was estimated that more than ten thousand visitors came to the museum in the first six years.  In 1974, the building was sold to the now defunct Atlantic Union College and reopened as the Mabel Bartlett Art Gallery. Much of the Thayer collection was donated to the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Mr. Thayer’s alma mater, Harvard University. Since the Atlantic Union College closed in 2018, this important building has been closed, hopefully to see reuse in the eventual redevelopment of the campus.

Nathaniel Thayer Mansion // 1902

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The Thayer Family is one of the most prominent and well-connected families of New England, and that stature comes with handsome estates. Nathaniel Thayer (1801-1883) was born in Lancaster as the son of Reverend Nathaniel Thayer (1769–1840), a Unitarian congregational minister. Nathaniel Thayer Jr. made his fortune in businesses and held deep ties to his hometown, despite spending most of his time in Boston. He took down the original Thayer home on this site and developed the estate in the 1850s. After his death, the property was inherited by his son, Nathaniel Thayer III (1851-1911), and the house was enlarged and remodeled in the Georgian Revival style in 1902 by the architect and interior designer Ogden Codman Jr. The mansion served as a summer home to Nathaniel, who too spent much of his time in Boston. After his death, the 46-room mansion was sold out of the Thayer family with many of its furnishings sold at auction. The Nathaniel Thayer Mansion house was sold to Atlantic Union College in 1943 at a cost of $12,500. It was used as the school’s administration building between 1945 and 1951, and then as a dormitory until about 1970. From 1973 to present-day, the estate has been home to Thayer Conservatory, Center for Music and the Arts, who do a great job at preserving this significant landmark.

Bessie & Murray Potter House // 1909

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Murray A. Potter (1871-1915) and his wife, Bessie Lincoln Potter lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Murray worked as a Professor of Romance Languages at Harvard College. The couple spent summers in Lancaster, Massachusetts, where they would purchase a house in 1909 that was built just a decade or so earlier. The couple were said to be big fans of history and decided to make their house resemble the 1782 Pierce-Nichols House in Salem, having the brown shingle Victorian house “modernized” in the current three-story near-symmetrical form.

Lancaster Central School // 1904

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Located across the Town Common from the iconic Bulfinch Church in Lancaster, Massachusetts, this handsome 1904 Colonial/Classical Revival style school building was designed in response to its neighbors and Colonial context of the town of Lancaster. At a Town Meeting in 1903, a local building committee determined that “Bulfinch Colonial” would be the best style for the architecture for a new high school that would be built in the town center, with Herbert Dudley Hale, selected as the architect for the planned two-story brick building. The Center School had been used continuously as a public school until 2001, when it outlived its utility as school facility in town, which was vacated for years until grant funding and a restoration of the building, now known as the Prescott Building, for Town Offices, including the Lancaster Historical Commission. The facade is dominated by its seven-bay symmetrical façade featuring brick
corner quoins, double-door entrance, and two-story white-painted brick pilasters framing the entrance and “supporting” the pediment that contains the town crest in high-relief.

Lawrence-Bartol House // 1861

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This handsome Victorian residence on Main Street in Lancaster, Massachusetts, was built in 1861 for Rev. Amos E. Lawrence (1812-1897), pastor of the local Evangelical Congregational Church. Amos Lawrence lived in the house for just 4 years until he sold it to Rev. George Bartol, of the First Church of Christ, Unitarian in Lancaster. George Murillo Bartol (1820-1906) served as the pastor for the iconic Bulfinch church for over 50 years until his death in 1906. The residence was then inherited by Reverend Bartol’s son, John Washburn Bartol, a prominent Boston physician who would spend time away from the city at his family home. The unique form of this mansard/gambrel-roofed house stands out along with its Colonial Revival alterations, which likely occurred in the late 19th or early 20th century.

Fullerton Inn // 1921

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The Fullerton Inn, overlooking the Town Common in Chester, Vermont, is an imposing Colonial Revival style hotel that has been in operation through many iterations, and contributes to the strong commercial character of the Chester Village streetscape. The inn was first developed here following the arrival of the railroad to Chester, which brought new business and travellers to the formerly agrarian and light industrial community. The original 1862 inn building, known as the Ingraham House, was destroyed following a large fire in the village, and its replacement burned as well in January 1920. Within a year, the present building was built from the ashes in a style typical of the early 20th century, Colonial Revival. Dominated by the large slate-shingled gambrel roof and projecting front veranda, the building’s most iconic feature is said to be inside, a fireplace inside the lobby which contains 27 stone varieties from the area.

Chester Masonic Temple // 1907

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Built in 1907, this handsome building on Main Street in Chester, Vermont, has long been the home to the Olive Branch Lodge 64 of the Freemasons, an international fraternal organization. Colonial Revival in style, the building features corner pilasters that support a denticulated entablature along the eaves of the slate hip roof. A projecting portico over the front entrance is supported by classical Ionic columns. The 1920s marked a heyday for Freemasonry, especially in the United States. By 1930, over 12% of the adult male population of the United States were members of the fraternity. Following the Great Depression and WWII, membership sharply declined in fraternal organizations, like the Masonic Temple. A number of years ago, the Lodge here moved to a new building in a nearby town, and a local law firm purchased the building and spent 18 months renovating the building for use. Today, the historic character and even symbology remain on the building, while it houses a local business. 

Thomas Aspinwall House // 1896

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The Thomas Aspinwall House at 14 Hawthorn Road in Brookline was constructed in 1896 by architects, Ball & Dabney. The stately home was built for Thomas Aspinwall as a near copy of his great-grandfather’s 1803 Federal style house on Aspinwall Hill, the William Aspinwall House. Both residences feature a four-tier central bay with Palladian and lunette windows with a columned portico at the entrance. His grandfather, Dr. William Aspinwall graduated from Harvard in 1764 and studied medicine in Connecticut and in Philadelphia before beginning his medical practice in his hometown. He was one of the Brookline men who marched west and fought British troops as they retreated from Lexington and Concord in April 1775. He was put in charge of a hospital in Jamaica Plain during the Revolutionary War and later ran a hospital for smallpox victims in Brookline. His 1803 Federal style home was demolished in 1900 as the Aspinwall Hill area of Brookline was developed, but luckily, a replica remains on the other side of town, here on Hawthorn Road!

William & Sara Warren House // 1911

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Built in 1911, this Colonial Revival style house rendered in stucco, is located at 28 Hawthorn Road in the Pill Hill neighborhood of Brookline, Massachusetts. The residence was built for William Marshall Warren (1865-1953) and his wife, Sara Shields Warren (1874-1964) from plans by the firm of Gay & Proctor. William M. Warren served on the faculty at Boston University as Professor of Philosophy and later as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, promoted by his father, William Fairfield Warren, who was President of the University. The Warren House features a symmetrical five-bay facade with central entrance within a projecting pedimented vestibule framed by four pilasters. The pilasters are replicated in the three dormers at the roof, set below the central chimney.

Charles P. Ware House // 1894

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The Charles P. Ware House at 52 Allerton Street in Brookline, shows us that a house doesn’t have to be a mansion to make a statement! Built in 1894 from plans by architect, Henry Forbes Bigelow, this charming Colonial Revival cottage is notable for its brick construction with gambrel roof and brick endwalls rising as parapets. The home was built for Charles Pickard Ware (1840-1921) and wife, Elizabeth Lawrence (Appleton) Ware, who lived here until their deaths. Charles P. Ware was an educator, music transcriber, and abolitionist, who served as a civilian administrator in the Union Army, where he was a labor superintendent of freedmen on plantations at Port Royal, South Carolina during the Civil War. At one of the freedmen plantations, Seaside Plantation, Ware transcribed many slave songs with music and lyrics, publishing many in Slave Songs of the United States, which was the first published collection of American folk music. After Charles and Elizabeth Ware died in 1921 and 1926, respectively, the property was inherited by their son, Henry Ware, who was an attorney.