Historic Building

Robbins & Marsh Store // c.1858

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Located in the Chester Depot Village, a commercial and civic assortment of buildings constructed in the mid-19th century between the often feuding North and South villages in Chester, Vermont, this handsome commercial building contributes to the character and history of the once thriving commercial center of town. Built across the tracks of the Central Vermont Railroad from the town’s depot, this Italianate style building dates to about 1858 when a P. H. Robbins opened an all-in-one store, selling everything from groceries to hardware and building products. Mr. Marsh was later joined by Frederick W. Marsh, who entered into the business, then named the Robbins & Marsh Store. The business thrived with the close proximity to the railroad depot with later alterations to the building including the addition of plate glass storefronts and a massive side awning porch. Business slowed after WWII, as rail service slowed and ultimately stopped in town. Today, the handsome building remains as an important visual anchor to the depot village. 

Chester Depot // 1872

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The first public train arrived in Chester, Vermont, on July 18, 1849, and in December, the Rutland & Burlington Railroad opened the first rail line across Vermont linking the Connecticut River valley at Bellows Falls and Lake Champlain at Burlington. A fire destroyed the first station in 1871, and the Vermont Central Railroad built the current station within a year. The State of Vermont purchased the line in 1963, leasing it in part to the Green Mountain Railroad. Exceptional in Vermont, this brick station retains its high-style Italianate design and continues in railroad use. The station can be classified as Italianate/Romanesque in style and has a corbeled cornice, windows capped by brick hood moldings, and a projecting trackside awning. It appears that the station is not in active use, does anyone know more?

Old St. Stephen’s Church – Barker Playhouse // 1840

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The old St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Providence’s Fox Point neighborhood is an architecturally distinctive Greek Revival style church building located on charming Benefit Street. The church had its beginnings in 1839, when the newly established congregation called on 29-year-old Francis Vinton to serve as their first pastor. The congregation funded this small church which broke ground in 1840, and before it was completed, Rev. Vinton resigned as Rector. The building, built of stone and covered in stucco, once had a spire and belfry above the main entrance. The congregation grew over the next decade and it was soon realized that a larger and more central church should be built for members, many of whom were wealthy residents with mansions surrounding Brown College. In 1860, the parish purchased a lot on George Street, and hired architect, Richard Upjohn to design the new church in the Gothic style. For reasons of location, and possibly social class, twenty-two men and women remained here at the less fashionable church and formed a new parish, the Church of the Saviour. The smaller, mission church with its stucco walls, remained until the property was sold in 1932 to house the Barker Playhouse, reputed to be the oldest continuously operating little theatre in the United States.


Rhode Island Hospital Trust Building // 1917

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Located at the eastern edge of Downtown Providence, the Rhode Island Hospital Trust Building is significant as one of the city’s finest examples of the Beaux Arts style of architecture and as the headquarters of what was once the largest banking institution in the state of Rhode Island. The Rhode Island Hospital Trust incorporated in 1867 as the first trust company in New England. It owes its unique name to the fact that it was chartered by the board of trustees of Rhode Island Hospital, founded four years earlier, with the trust company established to help finance operations of the hospital. The original, purpose-built bank was constructed in 1891, and quickly outgrown as the institution grew exponentially into the early 20th century. In 1916, the trust hired the New York architectural firm of York & Sawyer to furnish plans for the present structure. Construction began in 1917, and after delays caused by WWI, the building finally opened in 1919. The 11-story U-shaped building was designed in an exaggerated form of Renaissance palazzo, with steel-framed construction that is faced with marble on the two lower levels and limestone elsewhere. After a series of mergers throughout the 20th century, the building was owned by FleetBoston, who donated this pristine building to the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), which was renovated into a dormitory by RISD-alumni and architect Nader Tehrani of NADAAA Architects. It is today known as the Mandle Building.

Reed Community Center // 1926

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Tucked away behind the 1898 Adams Library in Kingston, Massachusetts, this shingled building has important significance to the community and is about to celebrate its 100th birthday. The Reed Community House began in 1926, when Edgar Reed (1852-1930), donated funds to the town for the construction of a community house to be built adjacent to a public playground site behind the town’s library. Edgar was a descendant of Jesse Reed, a successful Kingston inventor and tack-maker. Jesse Reed had worked in Maiden prior to coming to Kingston where he invented a ship-steering device, a luggage winch, freeze-proof water pumps, and other improvements for looms and weaving methods. The Reed family was one of several Kingston families that had relocated to Worcester, but kept close ties to their hometown. The Reed Community House was designed by Sidney Lincoln Rhodes of Worcester in the Colonial Revival style. The best part of the building is the north elevation, facing the playgrounds as the two-story portico looks over the fields. During the 1930s, the community house was used for a nursery school holding between 48 to 60 preschoolers. The Red Cross also used the building during World War II for some of its programs including first aid classes. The building continues to be an important community facility to the present day and is the home to the Kingston Recreation Department. 

Frederic C. Adams Library // 1898

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Built in 1898 in the heart of Kingston’s village center, the Frederic C. Adams Library was designed by renowned architect Joseph Everett Chandler and is one of the finest Colonial Revival style libraries in New England. Chandler, famed for his dedication to historic forms, created a one-and-a-half-story masonry gem, complete with a gabled roof, dentilled cornice, and a grand four-column Corinthian portico at the entry. The building’s story began with a bequest from Frederic  C. Adams, a Kingston native whose $5,000 gift in 1874 helped break ground on a dedicated library. Its elegant Colonial Revival look recessed panel windows, stone keystones, and symbolic half-round arches, echoes America’s early architectural traditions with a refined late‑19th‑century flourish. The library was eventually outgrown, and relocated across the street, to a contemporary building. After an award‑winning restoration, the building reopened in 2012 as the Adams Center, now housing Kingston’s Local History Collections in a climate‑controlled room and hosting community events upstairs. The Contemporary addition, paired with the restoration work all by Spencer Preservation Group, blends old with new in a pleasing way. 

Kingston Powder House // 1806

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The Kingston Powder House is located at 16 Green Street adjacent to the historic Faunce Schoolhouse in Kingston, Massachusetts. The astylistic, 10-foot-square wooden building may seem like a generic structure, but it is significant as a rare, intact example of wooden powder house, and one of only four extant in New England (there are more numerous examples of brick or stone powder houses). The Kingston Powder House was constructed in 1806 to store gunpowder and shot for the town militia. It was likely constructed on footings or directly on the ground, making it relatively easy to move, possibly to keep it away from the growing town in case of explosion. The Powder House has been moved several times in its lifetime and has been settled here in the town center and is awaiting a restoration using Community Preservation Act grants. I can’t wait to see this building preserved!

M. A. Pickett Building // 1902

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The M. A. Pickett Building on Washington Street in Marblehead is a spectacular example of a commercial building of the early 20th century designed in the Colonial Revival style. The building was designed in 1902 by the firm of Peare & Quiner, who worked mostly in the North Shore of Massachusetts and funded by members of the M.A. Pickett Association, a fraternal organization founded in the late 19th century and named after Moses A. Pickett (1780-1853), who left his entire will to: “comfort the widow and the fatherless, the aged, the sick, and the unhappy”, also donating his home to the use and funding for its preservation. In 1866, a hand-drawn fire engine named after M. A. Pickett, was used by a group of volunteer firefighters, who later would create the club named after Mr. Pickett. The building originally held a barber shop and a creamery on the ground floor with a meeting hall and billiards room above for members of the Pickett Association. Today, the building is lovingly maintained, including the three stunning Palladian windows at the third floor.

Cloon Stores // c.1880

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Washington Street in Marblehead is lined with dozens of amazing old homes, civic, and commercial buildings, that serves as the “downtown” spine of the old village. Located at the corner of Washington and State streets, this handsome late-Victorian commercial block serves as an important contributing building to the character of Marblehead. The structure was built around 1880 for a member of the Sparhawk Family, who operated the building as a factory or store for their shoe manufacturing. By the 1890s, the building was owned by Horace Cloon and Samuel G. Cloon, who operated a hardware store from the ground floor and leased the upper floor as apartments. The block retains its original bracketed cornice over the storefronts, but the brackets at the upper cornice are no longer extant. 

Lyman School for Boys – Manual Arts Building and Powerplant // c.1900

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The former Lyman School for Boys was established in Westborough as the Massachusetts State Reform School in 1847, the first state-operated reform school in the country. Initially located on the eastern shore of Lake Chauncy and dominated by a single massive building, but its early history was plagued by conflict between inmates and administration. In 1885, legislative action authorized the Trustees to purchase and prepare a new site, the first in the state system to be developed on the dispersed cottage plan, the school thrived throughout the 19th century and into the 20th century until its eventual closure in about 1974. Much of the campus was designed by architect, William G. Preston, likely including this industrial building, which was used as a Manual Arts training building. Here, young men would learn trades, where upon graduation, they would be able to enter the workforce. The building appears to have been extended decades later with the addition of a powerplant wing, in a more Arts and Crafts style. The handsome building has been vacant for over 50 years and is literally a shell of its former self. With much of the old Lyman School campus razed for uninspiring replacement buildings, it would be a shame to see this building not restored and adaptively reused.

Lyman School for Boys – Elms Cottage // 1906

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The former Lyman School for Boys was established in Westborough as the Massachusetts State Reform School in 1847, the first state-operated reform school in the country. Initially located on the eastern shore of Lake Chauncy and dominated by a single massive building, but its early history was plagued by conflict between inmates and administration. In 1885, legislative action authorized the Trustees to purchase and prepare a new site, the first in the state system to be developed on the dispersed cottage plan, the school thrived throughout the 19th century and into the 20th century until its eventual closure in about 1974. This cottage, known as Elms Cottage, provided rooms for the young men at the school, providing sanitary and well-appointed lodging as they were “reformed” to graduate and enter society. Each cottage was ruled by a cottage master and usually a cottage matron. This husband-and-wife team lived in a cottage apartment and was on duty 24 hours a day, often overseeing the young boys and strictly disciplining them, without much oversight. Many of the cottages and other buildings on the campus were demolished after the school closed, but the Elms Cottage, designed in the Arts and Crafts style, was restored.

Pine Grove Cemetery Mausoleum & Chapel // c.1875 & 1904

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Mausoleum

The mausoleum and the Jonas A. Stone Memorial Chapel are two historic structures located in the Pine Grove Cemetery of Westborough, Massachusetts. Land here was acquired in 1746 by the Reverend Ebenezer Parkman, and it comprised of a pine lot of sixteen acres on the road to Mendon (now South Street). Nearly 100 years later, in 1844, the lot was deeded to the town as a new cemetery, as the older cemeteries were quickly becoming crowded. It was named Pine Grove after the historic use of the grounds. Due to the rural cemetery movement, which sought to reimagine cemeteries as a beautiful park-like setting, not a simple burial ground, many Westborough families purchased plots here and some even moved their loved ones to the new family plot, in the “new” Pine Grove Cemetery.

Chapel

The Mausoleum was built sometime in the mid-19th century and is a modest, Greek Revival style structure of granite and brick construction. Four Doric columns support the portico and wooden roof which serves as a pediment above. The Jonas A. Stone Memorial Chapel was built in 1904 following a bequest to the town from the will of Jonas Adams Stone (1821-1900), and additional donation by his brother, Nymphas Stone. The Victorian Gothic chapel is built of brick and brownstone with a wooden gable and roof. The structure was damaged during the destructive 1938 New England Hurricane, but restored and is an important local landmark today.

Westborough Savings Bank // 1928

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The Westborough Savings Bank was incorporated in 1869 and shared space in a building with another bank and the post office. As the population and prosperity grew in the suburban community, so did the Westborough Savings Bank, who would move into a larger space. Just before the Great Depression, the bank sought to build its first purpose-built structure, and they hired the firm J. Williams Beal & Sons to furnish plans for this handsome masonry bank, designed to showcase the strength and stability of the institution. Renaissance Revival in style, the 1928 building is constructed of buff brick with limestone trim. The facade is dominated by large, round arched windows and is framed by pilasters with an off-center entrance. The Westborough Savings Bank would eventually merge into Avidia Bank and the West Main Street building was sold. The handsome building is well-preserved and home to Westborough TV, which makes broadcast media programming that is by, about, and for the entire Westborough community.

Harvey School // 1883

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Built to meet the needs of an expanding and prosperous community, the Harvey School in Westborough, Massachusetts, was built as a neighborhood school and is both historically and architecturally significant. Located on Phillips Street, a residential, tree-lined street just north of the commercial center of town, the Harvey School was built in 1883 under the supervision of Dr. Edwin Bayard Harvey, a local doctor who served on the town’s School Committee and as superintendent of schools from 1887-1890. As a State Senator he introduced a bill in 1884, which became law, to provide free textbooks for schoolchildren of Massachusetts. The Queen Anne style school building was in plan, designed by Dr. Harvey, who hired the Worcester-based architectural firm of Barker & Nourse, to furnish plans and design the building itself. The school would eventually close in 1980 as many local schools were consolidated, and the building was rented to the Boy Scouts and the Westborough Community Chorus. Recent attention on the under-utilized building has initiated more discussion on the future of the building, which may eventually house a regional emergency communications center.

Central Hall // c.1885

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Located next door to the former High School (now the Town Hall) of Stonington, this mansard-roofed commercial building on Main Street is a prototypical example of late 19th century mixed-use architecture seen all over Maine. This building was constructed in the 1880s and known as Central Hall. The building contained retail spaces at the ground floor and tenement housing in the upper floors for workers at local granite quarries. The building is well-preserved and an important contributing building to the working village of Stonington.