Summer Resort

Mount Pleasant House – Harry Whitney House // 1868

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After the Civil War, summer tourism boomed in New England towns, where city residents flocked to the coasts or mountain towns as a respite from the hot and polluted city. Princeton, Massachusetts, became a favorite location for Boston and Worcester families, due to the extensive farmland, forests, and hilly terrain which provided cool summer breezes of fresh air. Due to this, a number of summer hotels were built in Princeton, including the Mount Pleasant House in 1868. Owner, Charles Augustus Whittaker, opened the main block of the house to summer boarders in 1868, which would see immediate success. The three-bay mansard-roofed Second Empire style residence was outgrown in the first couple summers and in 1875, Whittaker would expand the building with two side wings of the same style, to accommodate up to 60 guests. Moses Goodnow (1846-1934), the nephew of Edward A. Goodnow, a wealthy benefactor to the town, would acquire the hotel in 1879 and operated the facility until 1908, when the summer hotels began to see less visitors. In 1912, wealthy Worcester-based manufacturers, Edward C. and Harry S. Whitney, purchased the Mount Pleasant House, subdivided its lot, and divided the house in two, each taking one half as their private summer residence. The original section, this building, was occupied by Harry and remained on its site and the wing was moved down the street for his brother, Edward. The building remained a single family residence until the 1980s when it was converted to five condominium units, retaining its architectural integrity.

Original Mount Pleasant House before split.

Mount Wachusett Summit House // 1870-1970

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Third Summit House, courtesy of Princeton Historical Society.

Built as three buildings over a span of one hundred years, Mount Wachusett’s Summit House stood over the town of Princeton, Massachusetts, and epitomized the rise of tourism in the community in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In as early as 1866, William Morse began selling candy and cigars to summer tourists at the summit of Mount Wachusett, later building the first Summit House in 1870. The small stone building was a respite for visitors who walked or took horses up the mountain until 1874, when the Wachusett Mountain Company built a road to the top drawing even more visitors from the summer-resort boom in Princeton. As the mountain saw increased visitors, a second hotel, built in 1884 by Phineas A. Beaman, was constructed and nicknamed the “Tip Top,” with lodging in 30 rooms, with water supplied by a windmill on the shore of Summit Pond. Stagecoaches carried guests up from the Princeton train depot, and the season is estimated to have drawn around 30,000 visitors a year at its peak. The third Summit House, built in 1907, is known from postcards as a hotel that treated the summit as a parlor. The building was slated for demolition in 1970 to make way for a new recreational facility, but burned to the ground later in the year. Today the hotels are gone, but the summit still draws visitors by foot, car, or ski gondola, who take in the views of Massachusetts.

Captain Benjamin Harrington House – Fernside // 1835

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Near the side of Mount Wachusett in Princeton, Massachusetts, Fernside has seen nearly two centuries of changing use but has maintained its significance all the while. This house was originally built in 1835 by Captain Benjamin Livermore Harrington (1774-1851) as a late example of a Federal style farmhouse with a symmetrical, five-bay facade and center entrance. Local resident, Wilkes Roper, bought the house in 1870 as the town of Princeton became desirable as a summer retreat, offering visitors cool mountain breezes and sweeping views of central Massachusetts. Mr. Roper added the side wings and opened the house as the Summer House Hotel, primarily renting rooms to Harvard professors and students. By 1890, the building had become the Vacation House for Working Girls. Renamed Fernside, the property became a resort for working women who could not otherwise have afforded a vacation. A week’s stay would have cost these ladies $4 in 1900. Guests arrived by train and were met by the Fernside carriage, which brought them and their luggage to the property. While staying here, the girls hiked the mountain, enjoyed fresh vegetables from the garden, and spent evenings in the library with charades, musicals, theatricals and dancing. Fernside’s final summer as a vacation house was 1988. Today, the property is home to Fernside at McLean, a rehabilitation center operated by McLean Hospital.

The Nantucket Hotel // 1891

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In 1888, Charles F. Folger of Philadelphia purchased the former Elijah Alley house on Easton Street, just north of the main village of Nantucket. Folger hired carpenter Edwin R. Smith to design and build a new grand hotel for summer residents of Nantucket. Originally named the Point Breeze Hotel, the grand resort opened in the summer of 1891. The Queen Anne style hotel contained forty sleeping apartments in the upper floors and was dominated by a corner tower with billiards rooms and a bowling alley in the raised brick basement. Business was booming, and by the early 20th century, Folger expanded the hotel adding the east wing in the Colonial Revival style. In 1925, a fire destroyed the original Point Breeze Hotel, leaving just the East Wing. By this time, the days of the grand, wooden hotels was coming to a close. The Nantucket Institution for Savings acquired the hotel during the Great Depression, until 1936 when Gordon Folger Jr., grandson of the Point Breeze’s original proprietor, purchased the hotel and renamed it after himself, as the Gordon Folger Hotel. By the end of the 20th century, the building sat underutilized, the early 2000s when Little Gem Resorts purchased the hotel, seeking to restore this historic property back to her former glory. The original 1891 hotel was rebuilt in 2012, even down to its iconic corner tower, and the hotel was renamed The Nantucket. The hotel is open year-round and is lavish inside and out, providing you with a sense of home even when on vacation in the middle of the Atlantic!

Paragon Park Carousel // 1928

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The Paragon Park Carousel at Nantasket Beach in Hull, was built in 1928 for the Paragon Park Amusement Park (featured previously), and is possibly the oldest remaining feature of the old park. When the park was created, many wealthy summer residents clutched their pearls as their quiet, peaceful summers would soon be overrun by those looking for rides and pleasure. From its inception in 1905, Paragon Park placed a carousel at the hub of its amusement attractions, just south of the main entrance gate. While this was just the first of several carousels to be installed in the park, its inclusion in the earliest iteration of Paragon Park shows the importance of the form as an attraction. The current carousel was built in 1928 by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company for Paragon Park, the carousel featured two chariots pulled by two horses each and had four rows of horses (66 in all). One of only 18 four-row carousels ever produced by Philadelphia Toboggan Company it is some forty feet in diameter. Housed in a specially built twelve-sided stucco structure to protect the delicate motor and paint in poor weather. When Paragon Park was sold to developers in 1986, parts of the carousel ride were auctioned off, but most were purchased by a locally organized preservation committee. That same year, it was moved a short distance to its present location to save it from the wrecking ball. It is now operated by the Friends of the Paragon Carousel.

St. Ann’s by-the-Sea Episcopal Church // 1892

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Saint Ann’s by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in Kennebunkport is possibly my favorite building in the seaside town. As the Cape Arundel summer colony of Kennebunkport was rapidly developing in the 1880s, summer residents needed a place to worship and sought an appropriate location close to their mansions. Boston architect Henry Paston Clark sketched up some conceptual drawings for a stone chapel pro-bono as he already had active commissions in the town and summered there himself. Funds were raised and the current site was donated by the Kennebunkport Seashore Company, who developed the neighborhood. The cornerstone was laid on August 22, 1887. Five years later construction was completed, and the church was debt-free. The large sea-washed stones were hoisted and dragged to the church site during the winter of 1886-1887, and work on the building began May 27, 1887. The same sea-washed stones that grace the building’s exterior were also used for the interior of the church and sacristy. The roof over the central part of the church (the nave) is framed with hard pine hammer beam trusses and the floor is cleft slate.

Nonantum Resort // 1884

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In the late 1800s, many coastal New England communities – including Kennebunkport – became summer resort towns and colonies for upper and middle class families. To accommodate families, who would arrive to these small towns by the train-load, many wealthy citizens constructed luxury hotels which offered longer term stays compared to what we think of hotels today.

The Nonantum Resort in Kennebunkport was named from a Native American word meaning ‘blessing’ or ‘prayer’, but has become synonymous with ‘family’, the word was chosen as the building was believed to have been constructed on land where Native Americans traded with early settlers. Opened on the Fourth of July in 1884, the hotel was constructed for Captain Henry Heckman, the original owner. The building was a fairly modest, late Italianate design until alterations and additions in the 1890s added a Colonial Revival motif, with pilasters capped with Corinthian capitals and cartouches; however, many features have been removed.