Middlesex County MA

Former West Acton Universalist Church // 1868

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This beautiful church in Acton, Massachusetts was built in 1868 by the Universalists of West Acton who sought a house of worship closer to their homes, rather than taking horses to the other part of town every week. The building exemplifies the influence of both Gothic Revival and Italianate styles on rural churches of the time. Gothic elements include the double pointed lancet windows with quatrefoil ornament, buttresses, and pointed lancet panels on the tower and belfry. Italianate elements include the rusticated base and the corbel table at the eaves. Religious services ceased in 1925. At that time, the church building was bought by leading men in the village who gave the building to the West Acton Women’s Club, which began in 1890 by Lucy Mead (the wife of Oliver Mead, who built the Mansard home nearby). In the 1950’s, the church was used as a community center. It is now home to a local performing arts center, Theatre III Box Office.

West Acton Citizens Library // c.1845

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Old houses adapted for other uses always deserves a highlight! The West Acton Citizens Library was originally constructed in 1840 as a small, one-story Greek Revival style cape house either for or purchased by Phineas Wetherbee, a farmer and early landowner in the village. The modest house features little detailing besides the recessed entrance composed of wide, flat pilasters and a lintel decorated with square corner blocks and a central keystone. In 1883, Phineas Wetherbee met with thirty-nine others to form the Citizens Library in West Acton. The organization accessioned the collection of the former Farmers Club Library. When Mr. Wetherbee died in 1895, he bequeathed his house to the library, who later moved into the house by 1900. Today, the house remains a library space for the West Acton village.

Edgar Hall House // 1889

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Another of Acton’s amazing old Queen Anne homes is the Edgar Hall House, an 1889 gem on Windsor Avenue. The house was built for Edgar Henry Hall and his wife Angelina who raised their daughter, Alice, in the home. Edgar and his brother inherited the family business from their father, Enoch Hall, and they produced wooden pails, tubs, clothing racks, and other wooden goods. The company employed over 30 workers in the early 20th century until it closed during the Great Depression. Edgar retired and relaxed from this stunning Victorian home until his death in 1954.

Oliver Mead Mansion // c.1870

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Acton, Massachusetts is one of the more underrated Massachusetts towns for great old buildings, many of which are well-preserved and taken care of by their owners. The Oliver Mead Mansion in West Acton Village is among the largest in this part of town and is a stellar example of the Second Empire style. The house and adjacent carriage house was built around 1870 for Oliver Mead (1823-1912), who co-owned the A. O. W. Mead Company with his two brothers, a successful produce marketing company where they sold poultry, eggs, cheese, fruit, and other goods from farms in Acton and Boxborough to their shop on Market Street in Downtown Boston. The company did well, and Oliver and his brother Adelbert built matching mansions in West Acton after the Civil War and business picked up. The house exhibits a central projecting tower bordered by quoins and topped by a mansard roof with iron cresting on top. The original carriage house remains in a great state of preservation as well. The Adelbert House and Carriage house nextdoor were demolished in the 1950s for the fire station on the site.

Enoch Fuller Octagon // c.1850

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Oh the Octagon! The very rare Octagon house was a unique house style briefly popular in the 1850s in the United States and Canada. The style can generally be traced to the influence of one man, amateur architect and phrenologist Orson Squire Fowler. In his book, The Octagon House: A Home for All of 1848 (and reprinted with more photos in 1853), Fowler advocated for the shape’s benefits for buildings in that the octagon allowed for additional living space, received more natural light, was easier to heat, and remained cooler in the summer. These benefits all derive from the geometry of an octagon: the shape encloses space efficiently, minimizing external surface area and consequently heat loss and gain, building costs etc. Some were convinced and built Octagon houses, but the style and its brief period of popularity, died by the 1860s. This example in Stoneham, Massachusetts was built around 1850 for and by Enoch Fuller, a close personal friend of P. T. Barnum, founder of the Barnum & Bailey Circus. Fuller visited Barnum’s octagonal home in Bridgeport, Connecticut and he decided to construct an octagon house in Stoneham. The home was owned by Col. Gerrry Trowbridge not long after completion. The home was built with a fireplace in every room, a spiral, “flying” staircase, and a sweeping veranda.

Doucette Ten-Footer // c.1850

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Here is a building type many of you may not know of… the Ten-Footer! This 10 x 10-foot square building is a well preserved example of a kind of shop historically used by many shoemakers in the late-18th to mid-19th centuries. In Stoneham during the 19th century there were many such shops scattered throughout the town as the area became a sort of hub for shoemaking. In the age before and just after the Industrial Revolution, many Massachusetts residents had home shops in the yards where family and neighbors could earn extra part-time money by doing piece work on shoes. These cottage industry shoe workers were paid for each pair of shoes delivered to the local distributor. Usually, the owner-shoemaker worked alone or with family members in the cramped space with materials like leathers, rubber, and straps stored in the attic space in a loft in the gable. This ten-footer was built in the mid 19th century and later owned by Peter Doucette, who ran a shoe shop here. The small building was eventually acquired by the Stoneham Historical Society and was moved behind their building, restored and it can better tell the story of the town’s rich shoemaking history.

First Baptist Church of Stoneham // 1892

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In 1891, the Baptist Society of Stoneham, Massachusetts unveiled that it had acquired funding and approved the plans for its first purpose-built church building in town. The organization met in a shared chapel in town since its founding in 1870. The new church would be unique in the Boston suburb as the only in town to be of the Queen Anne/Shingle style. A prominent site on South Main Street was acquired and work began in 1892 to erect the new house of worship. The design of the church is credited to the firm of L.B. Volk & Sons, a firm who specialized in church buildings with commissions all over the country. The church is complex in plan and combines brick and shingle siding in its construction with a prominent two-story tower with rounded corners and stained glass rondels (round windows).

Stoneham Fire Station // 1916

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Fire stations are some of the most recognizable and iconic buildings in any city or town, but to find historic fire stations is becoming less and less common as larger trucks and facilities put a strain on the older buildings. The two-story brick Renaissance Revival fire station in Stoneham, Massachusetts was built in 1916 and continues to serve as the town’s central fire station. Its most prominent feature is its four-story hose drying tower, which is reminiscent of Italian Renaissance-era towers. The building was designed by architect Penn Varney and has been well-maintained by the town for over 100 years.

John Bottume House // c.1858

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The John Bottume House in Stoneham, Massachusetts was built c.1858, this stone house was one of several built along the shore of Spot Pond by a Boston businessman as a retreat, and is the only one to survive. The coursed granite residence is an excellent and high-style example of the Italianate architecture style. It is owned today by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, and houses the visitors center for the Middlesex Fells Reservation.

Charles Copeland House // c.1875

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Spot Pond, now encompassed by the Middlesex Fells Reservation, became a site of country retreats for Boston businessmen in the mid-late 19th century. One of the property owners was Charles Copeland, a confectioner and ice cream dealer, had ice houses on Spot Pond where he harvested ice for production into ice cream in Boston area shops. Copeland’s main house was located near the ice houses at the eastern shores of the pond, but this home was also owned by him in the 1870s. This residence was possibly rented out by Copeland or occupied by one of his many children. It remains a great example of the Stick and Shingle styles of architecture. The residence is maintained as part of the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation’s property in the Fells Reservation park.