Built on the once 3,000-acre estate of Ward Nicholas Boylston’s country house in Princeton, Massachusetts, this historic farmhouse was built as the old Villa became a year-round residence. When Ward Nicholas Boylston (1747-1828) died in 1828, his Princeton estate was inherited by his grandson, Dr. Ward Nicholas Boylston (1816-1870), who further developed the property. By 1830, Ward Boylston built this Greek Revival style farmhouse where he operated the property as a gentleman’s farm, with agricultural fields, dairy cows, and out-buildings. The farm was one of the largest in central Massachusetts and was known around the state. When Dr. Boylston died in 1870, his son, Ward Nicholas III, inherited the property but eventually sold it out of the family in 1918. Boylston Villa and the adjacent Boylston Farmhouse are separately owned, but retain their architectural and historical significance thanks to great stewards to maintain the properties.
A major loss to the architectural heritage of the small town of Princeton, Massachusetts, is the demolition of its old Center School in 2026. Originally built in 1906, the school was funded by the community a year prior when additional money was set aside to build the school of stone and wood, rather than the traditional brick in many other communities. The school was designed by the Worcester-based architectural firm of Barker & Nourse, who designed the building in an expression of the Shingle style, with a rustic rubblestone entry base and entrances set within arched openings, and continuous shingle siding above. The design was intentional and highlighted the small community’s history and standing as a premier summer destination with its proximity to Mount Wachusett. The Center School housed grades 1-12 until the mid 1950’s, and after just elementary and junior high. When a new school was built in 1991, the old Center School closed, but was long maintained by the town and occupied by the town Council on Aging, private studios, the Princeton Historical Society, and the Princeton Arts Society. The shortsighted decision to demolish the handsome and well-built structure was made, and the site will now be home to a Public Safety building, housing the police and fire departments, which in my opinion could have been built in front of this building or elsewhere.
The First Meeting House in Princeton, Massachusetts, was completed in June 1762, just three years after the community incorporated. The original meetinghouse was a plain structure that was eventually outgrown and replaced in 1796. By the 1830s, the church was dated and the congregation voted to erect a new house of worship, the first built without tax revenue. The third church, this building, was constructed at the northern edge of the Town Common but was moved to its present location in 1884 to facilitate the construction of Bagg Hall. Completed in 1838, the Greek Revival style Congregational Church of Princeton features a recessed portico, fluted Doric columns and pilasters, and a tall multi-stage steeple. Changes to the building are minor, and date to the 1884 move. The changes include a full basement and the installation of a rose window from the 1762 meetinghouse. Inside, an ornate chandelier said to have been saved from the Maverick Congregational Church in East Boston hangs above the pews.
Rising from the northwestern corner of the town common, Bagg Hall is the red-brick centerpiece of Princeton, Massachusetts, and it has shaped civic life in the village for well over a century. Funding for the structure came from wealthy businessman, Edward A. Goodnow. Born in Princeton, Edward Augustus Goodnow (1810-1905) was a storekeeper and manufacturer of shoes in Princeton before moving to Worcester where he made his fortune. He became the President of the First National Bank of Worcester and oversaw immense growth for the institution. Goodnow married four times in his 94 years of life, with his first two wives, Hariett Bagg and Mary Bagg (sisters) dying at just 28 years old and 31 years old respectively. In his later years of life, Edward began spending his fortune on charitable causes, including inveting in his hometown which lacked a proper Town Hall or Library. He donated funds for the Goodnow Memorial Library and in 1884, he funded Bagg Hall as the new Town Hall in Princeton, namedbagg in honor of the lives of his first two wives and his son, Henry, all of whom died prematurely. Mr. Goodnow hired Worcester architect, Stephen C. Earle, to design the building which resulted in this handsome brick structure in the fashionable Romanesque Revival style. The only stipulation was that the old Congregational Church was in the way. The solution: Goodnow paid to have the church moved from its site to the eastern edge of the town common. The Bagg Hall building is notable for its strong arched entrance beneath the gable, rounded corner tower with conical roof, and trimming in brownstone and terracotta accents. Today, the building is home of the town’s administrative offices and was restored by 2020.
Suffering from neglect, the grand East Princeton Mechanic’s Hall & Schoolhouse stands on Main Street in East Princeton, Massachusetts, as a lasting landmark of the once thriving industrial village. The site was originally home to a one-room schoolhouse built in 1843. Originally a schoolhouse built in 1852 for $600 with timbers from the original schoolhouse that was built in 1843. After about 10 years, the village’s growth necessitated a larger District school. A committee was established to oversee construction and funds for a new schoolhouse, which the committee decided should also include a meeting hall on the top floor, above two classrooms on the ground floor. The Greek Revival style structure is said to have been partially built with timbers salvaged from the earlier building, hence the 1843 date in the pediment. The building operated as a public school until it closed in the 1940s as district schools consolidated. For decades, the meeting hall was used occasionally by the Princeton Farmers and Mechanics Association and later by the East Princeton Village Improvement Society and local American Legion Post until the building was vacated entirely. The building has been left to decay by the town, who own the building, letting this become yet another example of a demolition by neglect.
The Rufus Underhill House in Billerica, Massachusetts, is an excellent example of the eclectic nature of residential architecture seen in the United States during the Victorian period following the conclusion of the Civil War. Without a clear distinguishing style, the house stands out for its unique form, architectural details, lancet windows and side four-story tower, all with paint colors to highlight and accentuate its distinctive features. The house and accompanying stable were built around 1870 for Rufus K. Underhill (1819-1894) and his wife, Deborah, as a place to spend their retirement. Rufus Underhill was born in Chester, NH and worked as a blacksmith, later establishing the Underhill Edged Tool Co. in Nashua later expanding to sales in Boston.
The architecturally distinguished Holmes Smith House on South Summer Street in Edgartown, Martha’s Vineyard, showcases the range in which the Greek Revival style could showcase whimsy and unique architectural details from the typical side-hall gable-end form seen all over New England. The house appears to date from the mid 1830s with its strong, symmetrical facade of flushboard siding, its three bays divided with paneled pilasters, and elaborate parapet containing a central dormer and arched fan motifs. The house was originally owned by Capt. Holmes Wass Smith (1798-1849) and his wife, Sophia (Coffin) Smith and later in the 19th and early 20th centuries by members of the Pease family. The residence is now a summer home and has been thoughtfully preserved as one of the most excellent and unique examples of its style on Martha’s Vineyard.
This iconic Boston building is threatened with demolition!
The clock is ticking for the Alley/Eblana Brewery, a historically and architecturally significant building in Boston’s Mission Hill neighborhood. Located on Heath Street, the historic Alley Brewery, also known as the Eblana Brewery, stands as a striking reminder of the city’s once-thriving brewing industry. Founded by Irish immigrant John R. Alley (1822-1888) in the mid-1880s, the brewery produced the popular Eblana Irish Ale, a name derived from the ancient term for Dublin, reflecting Alley’s heritage and the strong Irish influence in the area. John Alley previously co-owned the Highland Spring Brewery nearby, but founded a brewery in his own name in 1885. For his brewery, Alley hired Philadelphia architect Otto C. Wolf, who was the nation’s premier brewery architect and engineer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The four-story complex was built in 1886 and showcased some of the most advanced brewing technology of its era while displaying an impressive blend of brick and granite craftsmanship. Its distinctive façade features a dramatic central bay, granite-trimmed arches, rough-faced stone braces, wrought-iron gates, and carved stone plaques bearing Alley’s initials and the date of construction. After John’s death in 1888, the business continued under the ownership of his two sons, Frederick and George. The brothers in 1899, added the adjacent bottling and refrigeration building, which employs similar architectural features and materials to the main brewery. Brewing here ceased with Prohibition and the structure later served a variety of manufacturing uses, when during the 1960s, many windows were filled with brick. The Alley-Eblana Brewery remains one of Boston’s most architecturally significant surviving brewery buildings, embodying Boston’s rich industrial and ethnic heritage, but it is threatened. Developers have owned the building since 2013 and have done nothing to preserve or even maintain the structure, making it a case of demolition by neglect. They are requesting to demolish both structures, but the demolition has been delayed 90-days through the Boston Landmarks Commission Demolition Delay review process. If you want to see the building repurposed and saved, reach out to the Boston Landmarks Commission and advocate for its adaptive reuse, which would provide housing and maintain a significant architectural landmark for the community.
This single-story, hipped-roof, brick schoolhouse is approximately 30’x24′ in plan and was built in 1832 for the town of Milford, Massachusetts, as one of its district schoolhouses to serve the community. After Milford incorporated in 1780, the town was divided into school districts, where area pupils would attend one of six school buildings based on proximity to their primary residence. This brick building replaced an earlier school building which was lost following a fire in 1830. The town funded construction on this school at a cost of $524. The one-room school remained in use until the 1920s, until consolidated schools and accessibility due to bus and personal automobile made getting to a centralized school building, easier. The old North Purchase District School was briefly used as the North Purchase Community House, a center for area residents to socialize and provided space for local scout groups. The building has been boarded up since at least 2009 and its future looks uncertain.
The Wellington House at 72 Main Street in Swansea, Massachusetts, is an early 19th century Federal period residence that was “modernized” in the mid-19th century into its current form. It is unclear who the original owner of the residence was, but the property was acquired by Julia and James Birch in the 1850s as they built their Italianate style mansion next-door. They modified this cottage in the Italianate style to match their home and likely rented the property to Dr. James Lloyd Wellington (1818-1916), a Harvard-educated doctor who split his time between Swansea and Cambridge. The house was later donated to the Town and rented for years with profits going to the Public Library, until it sold and was restored by area residents, with the proceeds for the sale funding the library as well.
Elisha Rice (1784-1841) moved to Wayland, Massachusetts in 1800 and built this charming house on Bow Road for himself and his family. Elisha worked as a wheelwright, a craftsman who builds and repairs wooden wheels, and was able to build this home near the village. While built and later occupied by later artisans, the community has become an exclusive and wealthy Boston area suburb, which has subsequently made it so many “working class” citizens can no longer afford such a house, but has also allowed many of these great old homes to be lovingly preserved and maintained for future generations.
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.
The South Lancaster Engine House is located in the village of South Lancaster, Massachusetts, and is one of the town’s three remaining historic fire stations and the oldest that remains in use by the local fire department. At the Town Meeting of June 18, 1887, it was decided that $3, 500 would be expended to build a station for the Fire Department in South Lancaster. Construction began in 1887, and was completed in March of 1888 from plans by architect, C.A. Woodruff. The station housed horse-drawn wagons, including one sleigh, and featured a bell in the belfry to call attention to the public. The station appears much like it did when built in 1888, besides the bright white paint color and the modification of the engine doors for the new, larger fire trucks.
