adaptive reuse

Gardiner Hall, Jr. Company Factory // 1860+

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In 1860, Gardiner Hall Jr. (1839-1915) founded a spool cotton thread business called the Hall & Manning Company, and later renamed the Hall Thread Company. The new business failed in a year with the onset of the Civil War and the accompanying shortage of cotton. During the war, in 1861, Hall designed and patented a machine for finishing thread and moved to South Willington, Connecticut, founding the Gardiner Hall Jr. Company. He had a three-story mill building constructed around 1862 where his small operation took off. In the following decades, the factory complex expanded rapidly, and machine, blacksmith, and bleach and dye shops were built on the property to increase production. Coinciding with this growth, Gardiner Hall built tenements, a boarding house and a community building for his growing workforce in the 1870s nearby. Before his death in 1915, Hall donated funds to erect a memorial church in memory of his daughter, and donated generously to his workers. His son, William Henry took over operations and was succeeded by his sister, Rosa Hall, until the factory closed in 1954. The industrial buildings were used for decades from various manufacturing companies and today are occupied by retail stores, a tattoo parlor, and event space, perfect adaptive reuse!

Charles Street Meeting House // 1807

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The Charles Street Meeting House at the corner of Charles and Mount Vernon streets in Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood is one of the finest examples of a Federal period meeting house in New England. The building is thought to have been designed by architect, Asher Benjamin, due to its similarities to his Old West Church on Cambridge Street built a year prior. At the time of construction in 1807, the church stood near the banks of the Charles River, but is now a distance away from the Charles following a land-filling campaign to expand buildable land in the city. The Charles Street Meeting House consists of a two-story gable-roof main structure with a three-story tower on the south (primary) elevation that supports a clock tower and wooden cupola with double Ionic pilasters supporting the domed roof. The building was constructed for the Third Baptist Church congregation, who used the nearby Charles River for baptisms. In the years before the American Civil War, it was a stronghold of the anti-slavery movement, and was the site of notable speeches from such anti-slavery activists as Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Harriet Tubman and others. The Baptists sold the structure to the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1876, which was part of the first Black independent denomination in the United States. The AME Church sold the building in 1939 to the Charles Street Meeting House Society, and after a period of use as an Albanian Orthodox church, it was sold to the organization that is now, Historic New England, who were required to keep restrictions to preserve the building’s exterior. It served as a Universalist church from 1949 to 1979 with rented space inside to tenants, including a LGBT newsletter, Gay Community News, which was founded in the building in 1973. In 1980 the Meeting House was purchased by the Charles Street Meeting House Associates, who worked with the architectural firm of John Sharrat Associates to restore the building and adaptively reuse it into four floors of offices, with retail on the ground floor.

Braman-Richards Stables // c.1870

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Located behind the iconic former fire station on Mt. Vernon Street in Boston, this converted stable maintains the important nickname for the Beacon Hill Flat as the “horsey” part of the neighborhood, which developed on filled land and contained many stables for wealthy Beacon Hill residents. This two-story stable fronts River Street and dates to 1870 and was built along with the townhouses fronting the hidden Mount Vernon Square for Grenville Temple Winthrop Braman (1832-1902), who partnered with a builder, Daniel Davies, to develop the lots here. The stable, which originally had a flat roof, was occupied as private stables and later as storage for the townhouses for nearly 100 years until it was purchased in 1968 and converted into residences by architects and partners, Joan E. and Marvin Goody, who established Goody/Clancy, a Boston architectural and design firm. The interior was modernized and the addition of a contemporary metal “mansard” roof fits well within the context of the neighborhood and was an important early “remodel” in the Beacon Hill Historic District.

Chester Meetinghouse // 1793

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The Saybrook Colony was established in 1635 and covered a large geographic area near the mouth of the Connecticut River in Connecticut.  This area was later subdivided into different towns after colonial era villages were established, each with their own church congregations. As was common in the colonial era, these divisions were centered on the establishment of separate church congregations. The Fourth Ecclesiastical Society of Saybrook in what is now the town of Chester, Connecticut, was established in 1742. As the town grew, this building was constructed in 1793 as Chester’s second meeting house and served as a church until 1846, when the third Meeting House was built. In 1847, the Town of Chester acquired this old meetinghouse and from that date until 1960, it was used as the Town Hall. In 1876, the old meetinghouse was renovated with a new, projecting main entrance added to the south side of the building when the Old Town Hall enjoyed its heyday as a theater and concert hall. The Old Town Hall witnessed many events under its roof, including hosting P.T. Barnum’s Tom Thumb, who performed here, as did musical events, high school proms, and school graduations. The building had become threatened following the construction of the new Chester Elementary School, which better-hosted events, in the 1960s. Luckily, in 1970, the newly formed Chester Historical Society acquired the building and restored it as a significant piece of the town’s rich history.

Pratt, Read and Company Factory // 1881

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The Pratt, Read & Company Factory, located on Main Street in Deep River, Connecticut, was once the largest producer of ivory products in the world. The company was established in 1863, when Julius Pratt, George Read and their corresponding companies, merged to become Pratt, Read and Co. In 1866, the newly organized company built a new factory on this site. The business manufactured ivory combs, collar buttons, and toothpicks and specialized in the production of piano and organ keys. That factory burned in 1881 and as a result, over 160 employees were out of work. A year later, in 1882, the present factory was built of fireproof brick construction. The company, like many others, imported ivory from King Leopold’s Congo, where atrocities against indigenous people were common. The original Pratt, Read and Co. factory had an ornate pyramidal tower, which was removed in 1914. In 1936, the company merged with Comstock, Cheney & Co. and moved all operations to Ivoryton, CT. The Deep River factory was used for various manufacturing purposes throughout the rest of the 20th century until it was converted to condominiums as the appropriately named Piano Lofts.

Former Brookline Savings Bank // 1898

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The diminutive former Brookline Savings Bank building on Washington Street in Brookline Village is in stark contrast in scale and design from the 1965 Brookline Town Hall down the street. The building committee hired Franz Joseph Untersee, a Swiss-born architect who settled in Brookline, to furnish designs for their new bank, which opened in November 1898. Covered in Indiana limestone, the Beaux Arts style bank building features a modest, three-bay facade that is adorned by large round arched windows surrounded by an egg-and-dart motif, and an elaborate pediment with acanthus leaf and a central eagle in copper. Like many local banks, the Brookline Savings Bank saw a series of acquisitions and mergers throughout the 20th century, and this small bank building was sold. Today, the former Brookline Savings Bank on Washington Street is occupied by a church.

Wayland Railroad Depot // 1881

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The Wayland Railroad depot in Wayland, Massachusetts, was built in 1881 by the Massachusetts Central Railroad, which was later absorbed as part of the Boston and Maine Railroad. The line operated both passenger and freight service, with this structure serving as the passenger station and freight at the nearby structure, also built in 1881. Regular train service helped develop Wayland Center into a more prosperous Boston suburb, but industry and larger developments did not occur like in other communities. In its heyday, the Wayland station was manned by an agent with a small office in the building. The station agent was responsible for nearly all aspects of the operations from selling tickets; handling mail, baggage, and freight; keeping financial and operating records; and even maintaining the grounds. After WWII, car ownership and highway expansion harmed the rail industry and trains ceased to run in Wayland. To save the building from eventual demolition, the Town of Wayland purchased the old depots, which since the 1980s, has been leased to “The Wayland Depot“, a charitable women’s consignment craft shop with retail space in the station. The former rail line has largely been converted to a rail trail for pedestrians and bicyclists to traverse the old railroad right-of-way.

Old Houghton School // 1849

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In 1849, the Town of Bolton, Massachusetts, built its first high school, the Houghton School at 697 Main Street in the town center. Blending Greek Revival and Italianate styles, similar to Bolton’s 1853 Town Hall, the Houghton School is a large, two-story, pedimented building of wood-frame construction. Interestingly, the school was largely funded privately by a local resident, Joseph Houghton (1772-1847), who in his will, bequeathed land and $12,000 for a public high school for the town. By the terms of the donation, nine men (all of whom had at one time served as a Bolton tax assessor) and their descendants, were barred from attending the school for a hundred years. Questions about the bequest were put before the Massachusetts Supreme Court, which disallowed this clause. An additional requirement, stipulated that no teacher could serve there longer than two years. That restriction was eventually put aside in the early 20th century. In 1917, the high school was discontinued. The fenestration was likely altered around this time. Bolton began sending its high-school students out of town to a school of their choice, and the Houghton School became the Bolton junior high school. In 1970-71, the building was converted to town offices, with the Town Clerk and Assessor on the first floor and the Police Department on the second. Since 2012, the building houses Bolton Access TV, as well as The Conservation Trust and Friends of the Bolton Library.


Chester Academy – Chester Historical Society // 1884

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The town of Chester, Vermont, is one of the best small towns in the state for architecture lovers! Don’t believe me? I will prove it in this upcoming series. Located in Chester Village, the town’s center, this handsome brick building set off the main street, was built in 1884 as the town’s high school, replacing an 1814 private academy formerly on the site. The private academy closed in 1881, and the building was sold to the town, who by 1884, demolished the original structure and erected the current Italianate style building. The building served as the town high school until 1911, when a new high school was constructed nearby. The elementary and junior high school operated from here until the 1950s, when a modern school was constructed in town. Since 1950, the former academy building has been used by the Chester Art Guild, and currently is leased from the Town by the Chester Historical Society. The structure retains its architectural character down to the segmental arched windows and cupola.

Simonsville Schoolhouse // 1856

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One-room schoolhouses like this example in the Simonsville area of Andover, Vermont, have been commonplace throughout rural portions of New England where children of most ages would share the classroom and be taught everything from basic spelling to math. The Simonsville schoolhouse was built in 1856 and is a typical example of a vernacular one-room schoolhouse in rural New England, with no frills or ornament, just a house of learning. The Simonsville Schoolhouse was converted to a residence sometime in the latter half of the 20th century and has been renovated, keeping the basic form and interior floorboards from the 1850s. The school-turned-home is currently (2025) listed for sale.