Edgartown on Martha’s Vineyard, became a primary whaling port in the early 19th century. Ships from all over the world would dock in its sheltered bay and captains would build grand mansions for their families on the tree lined streets, with sweeping views of the harbor. This modest whaling captain’s home was built around 1840 for Captain John Sands and his wife Eliza. John Sands worked as crew on various whaling ships based out of New Bedford, from the vessel Hector at age 22 before becoming a captain on the vessel Benjamin Tucker. Sands even brought his wife along on whaling ships, including a nearly four year excursion hunting for whale oil. The Sands home is the Greek Revival style with a gable front, six-over-six windows of varying sizes with flared lintels, and an off-center front door with sidelights and transom with an entablature above.
Believe it or not, living on an island in the 19th century wasn’t as easy as you may think. Before this bank building was constructed in 1855, all banking was done off-island. The bank was constructed to house the newly formed Martha’s Vineyard National Bank, whose first president was Dr. Daniel Fisher, who made his money as a merchant and operator of one of the largest whale and sperm oil processing facilities in the country. The bank relocated to Vineyard Haven and the Edgartown National Bank was created to fill the void in town. Amazingly, the building is still to this day occupied by a bank, Rockland Trust, seemingly adding to the continuous occupancy of the building by banking facilities for well over a century. The structure is one of the oldest brick buildings in town and is a late iteration of the Greek Revival style.
Located at the heart of Oak Bluffs, this modest, wood-frame building has held some of the most important civic and cultural uses on the island. Built in 1882, the growing town of Cottage City (later renamed Oak Bluffs), which separated from Edgartown, needed a new town hall and fire station with the rapid development caused by summer visitors and increased year-round residents. After WWII, the property was renovated and expanded to allow space for a small police department in the building as well. In 1966, a new town hall was built across from the ferry pier at the waterfront, and the town soon after sold the former, outdated building, and two years later, it was purchased by The Cottagers, Inc. The Cottagers, Inc., is a philanthropic organization founded in 1955 by a group of African-American women who owned cottages or homes on Martha’s Vineyard. The social group provided a safe space for the growing Black community who lived on and visited Martha’s Vineyard. The building remains as an iconic landmark not only for its historical use and architecture, but as a symbol of the diversity and the black community in the small island town.
The year after Trinity Methodist Church was constructed, the Martha’s Vineyard Camp Meeting Association at Wesleyan Grove, built the wrought-iron Tabernacle, the most significant single building in the campground. The beautiful iron Tabernacle, which seats over 2,000, was designed and built in 1879 by John W. Hoyt of Springfield, Massachusetts. The building was completed in less than four months after the contract was signed. The Tabernacle covers the original consecrated ground of 1835 where the first Methodists erected canvas tents to worship under the trees. By 1869, the attendees at the revival meetings needed more protection from the sun and rain because the large oaks that had attracted the founders 35 years before had begun to die. Since 1870, the Association erected a mammoth canvas tent supported on tall poles every summer. The tent proved unsatisfactory because of ventilation problems and a tendency to collapse in storms. In 1878 the Association solicited designs for a large wooden tabernacle a building of vast roofs, minimal supports, and open walls. The plans it received, which were elaborate versions of the wooden tabernacles or “arbors” of southern camp meetings, proved too expensive to build on this site. Campground resident John W. Hoyt solved the problem with a much cheaper wrought iron structure that was largely prefabricated and could be speedily erected on the uneven site. The gorgeous Victorian Gothic tabernacle remains today as the centerpiece of the Wesleyan Grove National Historic Landmark District, an esteemed historical designation.
One of the most unique buildings I have ever seen is the Union Chapel in Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard. The chapel, built in 1870 in the American Stick Style, is in the form of an Octagon, very unique for churches. Built as an inter-denominational house of worship, it is significant as the first non-sectarian religious building to be erected in a community that until 1870, was noted primarily for its strong association with the Methodist Church and its summer camp meeting (Wesleyan Grove) assemblies. The Chapel offered islanders and seasonal visitors regardless of religious affiliation not only an opportunity to worship but a gathering place for cultural activities. According to historic images, the chapel once had more elaborate stick work and finials, since removed, likely due to storms and general maintenance concerns. The chapel was designed by island resident Samuel Freeman Pratt (1824-1920) who had no known architectural training besides working as a wood carver in Boston, yet his work is characterized as having a dynamic and festive style. Pratt’s other major contribution to Oak Bluffs’ architecture, the Sea View Hotel, was erected at the head of the wharf in 1872, but burned down in 1892.
On a last-minute trip to the Berkshires, I couldn’t help but stop at the recently re-opened Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (Mass MoCA) in North Adams. Being a huge nerd for industrial history and repurposed mills and factories, it was an absolute treat to walk through the large brick and steel buildings and wings lined with steel casement windows providing the perfect scenery for some amazing artworks. What is now known as Mass MoCA, – one of the premier art museums in New England – was once Arnold Print Works, a one time world leader in textile manufacturing with offices in New York City and Paris.
The Arnold Print Works were built on the Hoosac River near the center of North Adams. The company was the town’s largest industry during the city’s economic heyday from the Civil War until the early 20th century. The company was founded in 1861 by the John, Oliver, and Harvey Arnold, who began production of printed cloth at an existing cotton mill. At the dawn of the American Civil War, the newly formed company became flush with money due to government contracts for manufacturing Union Army uniforms. The company expanded after the war until a fire destroyed nearly all of the wooden buildings on the site. After the fire, a majority share of the company was purchased by Albert Charles Houghton, who became the first mayor of North Adams, and he oversaw the expansion and prosperity of the company, starting with new buildings of fire-proof construction.
By the early 20th century, many textile and cotton manufacturing shifted to the American South severely crippling the mill’s profits. In 1929, Sprague Electric Company moved to North Adams from Quincy, Massachusetts, and began buying the Arnold Print Works buildings. The print works moved much of its operation to nearby Adams and concentrated on a few particular products in its North Adams plant. The print works was finally sold in 1942 for just $1.9 million dollars, a far departure from its once prosperous past. The plant was shortly thereafter acquired by Sprague Electric Company.
While largely leaving the building exteriors as they were, Sprague made extensive modifications to the interiors to convert the former textile mill into an electronics plant. Sprague physicists, chemists, electrical engineers, and skilled technicians were called upon by the U.S. government during World War II to design and manufacture crucial components of some of its most advanced high-tech weapons systems, including the atomic bomb.
[Outfitted with state-of-the-art equipment, Sprague was a major research and development center, conducting studies on the nature of electricity and semi-conducting materials. After the war, Sprague’s products were used in the launch systems for Gemini moon missions, and by 1966 Sprague employed 4,137 workers in a community of 18,000, existing almost as a city within a city. From the post-war years to the mid-1980s Sprague produced electrical components for the booming consumer electronics market, but competition from lower-priced components produced abroad led to declining sales and, in 1985, the company closed its operations on Marshall Street.] (Mass MoCA History)
The complex sat vacant briefly before the Williams College Museum of Art, led by its director, Thomas Krens—who would later become Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum—advocated for a museum space for contemporary art that would not fit in traditional art galleries. The nearby Arnold Mills seemed like a perfect, yet daunting task to repurpose. Bruner/Cott Architects of Cambridge were hired to repurpose the mills and oversee the massive adaptive reuse project which today totals nearly 300,000 square feet of galleries and art venues.
Perched atop a seaside cliff on a neck jutting into the Atlantic ocean, this large summer cottage exhibits the rugged, yet enchanting character of the Maine coast. The house is part of the Cape Arundel Summer Colony and is one of the last built as part of the original period of development. The home was designed by Henry Paston Clark, a Boston architect who previously built a home on Cape Arundel and had summered there for years. His most notable design here is St. Ann’s Church, built for the summer residents of the area. The Bayberry Cove Cottage was built in 1915 for James Harrison and his wife and employed the use of cedar shingles, stone, and slate, to blend in with the rugged plot of land.
One of the larger Shingle style homes in Kennebunkport, Inglesea Cottage, was designed in 1889, possibly by Henry Paston Clark, who designed or worked on many homes and buildings in the summer colony. The original owner, Dr. George Frederick Brooks, a doctor based out of New York, who spent his childhood on the coast of Maine, and decided to spend his elderly summers there. By 1903, the home was purchased by Ms. Lucy Fay (1864-1937) of Fitchburg, MA, who hired Henry P. Clark, to add the cross gambrel addition to enlarge the home. Lucy Fay was the daughter of the the wealthy industrialist George Flagg Fay and his wife, Emily Upton, and upon their deaths, inherited their fortune (her sister died at just seven years old, making her an only child). The home remains in impeccable shape and is a head-turner everytime I drive down the coast.
This shingled cottage was built in 1900 for Dr. Francis B. Harrington, a surgeon who worked at Mass. General Hospital in Boston. The stunning cottage was designed with double gambrel gables, a large piazza/porch overlooking the ocean, and a porte-cochere, which was likely added after the home was completed. The home was designed by architect Henry Paston Clark (1853-1927), a Boston area architect who was briefly associated with Henry Vaughan, a leading Boston architect who executed several significant institutional and ecclesiastical works in the Boston area. Clark would later become best-known for his Shingle-style and Colonial Revival works throughout New England and spent his final years in Kennebunkport, where he died.
Thought to be the largest home in Kennebunkport, the Nathaniel Lord Mansion remains one of the most significant and ornate in the region. Captain Nathaniel Lord (1776-1815) was the son of Tobias Lord, a Revolutionary War veteran and later, a shipbuilder in Kennebunk. He followed his father’s footsteps and ran a shipyard, owning many ships and being one of the most prosperous merchants in the area. Kennebunkport was an important shipbuilding center and port of entry until during the War of 1812, when the British blocked the mouth of the Kennebunk River. All ship building and commerce ceased in this area at that time. Consequently, with no shipping being done, and no ships being built, the ship carpenters became idle. Nathaniel Lord commissioned these men to build him a large house and barn upon a piece of land given to his wife, Phoebe Walker, by her father Daniel Walker, who’s home stands to the north. The home was passed down for generations in the female line until the 1970s when it was restored and converted to the gorgeous Nathaniel Lord Inn.
Buildings of New England 