Vernacular Buildings

Garcelon Stable – Byron Street Hall // c.1850

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This handsome vernacular building on Byron Street on the Flat of Beacon Hill is one of a row of 19th century stables converted to residences. The building typifies the scale and appearance of many private stables in Boston of teh period and is built of brick with stone lintels over the openings. Due to its form and lack of ornamentation and sans mansard roof, the stable was likely built in the mid-19th century for an owner who resided in a mansion along Beacon Street. By 1874, the stable was run by Alsom Garcelon (1815-1881), a stable keeper who was born in New Brunswick, Canada and arrived in Boston by 1860 quickly making a business operating stables for wealthy Boston residents. He ran at least a half-dozen stables on the Flat of Beacon Hill and became a fixture in the community until his death in 1881. The building operated as a stable and later as a blacksmith shop until 1925, when owner, Andrew N. Winslow, bought the building and hired the firm of Putnam & Cox, to convert the building into a clubhouse. The site became home to the Byron Street Hall, a small public hall. It was later known as the Byron Street House and was connected to the Community Church in Boston. In 1940, the former stable was converted to the Bishop-Lee School, founded by stage actress Emily Perry Bishop, as a school for speech and acting. The school relocated by 1960, and after successive business uses, the building was converted to a residence, which it has remained ever-since.


Thayer Stable – Toy Theatre – Richard Platt House // c.1865

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This charming building at 16 Lime Street on the Flat of Beacon Hill, Boston, has seen a variety of uses from carpentry shop and stable, to working theater, and finally to a residence. Let’s dive in! 

The early ownership is murky, but by the 1870s, this two-story with mansard roof stable was owned by a “Nathan Thayer”, either Nathaniel Thayer Jr. or Nathaniel Thayer III of Lancaster, who also retained city residences in Boston. The building features two portals on the first-floor that originated as doorways, the wider on the left for horses and a carriage, and the smaller for access to residential space for the stable-keeper and likely a hay loft over the carriage door.  After the turn of the 20th century, the Flat of Beacon Hill gentrified into an exclusive enclave of residences, antiques shops, and artist studios and the former Thayer Stable was purchased by Frederick Oakes Houghton, an agent for transatlantic steamers. Houghton rented the building to an amateur theatrical group who organized as the Toy Theatre, that was founded in 1911 to present plays that had not been presented professionally in Boston. The founding group consisted of the usual, artistic, high society types, and had seating for 129 with no standing room. Houghton hired architect, Harold Symmes Graves, to convert the building into its theater use, enclosing the former carriage door and hay loft with multi-light windows, and creating a larger space inside for productions. The Toy Theatre did very well (due in part to its membership of upper-class Boston residents) and a new, purpose-built Toy Theatre was built in the Back Bay by 1914. In 1917, the former stable and theatre was purchased by Richard B. Platt, a musician and music teacher, and converted to a residence, a use that has remained ever since. 

Bend O’ the Lane House // 1740

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Located at a bend in the road on Cedar Avenue (formerly Cedar Lane) in Swansea, Massachusetts, the appropriately named ‘Bend O’ the Lane’ house is a charming Georgian-era farmhouse. The house was built in 1740 by Harlow Luther, who farmed the land here with his family. By the 19th century, owners included Victor Gardner, of the Gardner Family that largely settled on Gardner’s Neck in Swansea, and later by Philander Wilbur, a prominent local farmer that raised cattle and sold milk to area residents. The vernacular, Georgian farmhouse is of a unique and unpretentious form that shows the evolution of construction over time as families grew.

Little Red Shop // c. 1843

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The area that is now the town of Hopedale, Massachusetts, was originally known simply as the “Dale,” a small, secluded agricultural area between Mendon and Milford, that beginning in 1842, was home to a communal Christian society called “Hopedale Community.” The communal agricultural and manufacturing society that eventually acquired over 600 acres  and numbered more than 300 members at its peak before ultimately failing in 1856 due to socioeconomic inequalities and bankruptcy resulting from conflicts between its ideology and business organization.  In that same year, the assets of Hopedale Community were purchased by the E.D. and G. Draper Company, led by Ebenezer and George Draper, who were the operators of Hopedale Community’s most successful manufacturing enterprise, textile machinery manufacturing. The Drapers had previously shared space in this old machine shop, which dates to around 1843, alongside fellow community workers who made hat and shoe boxes, sawed lumber, and ran an iron forge. As the Drapers founded the Draper Corporation, which became the largest maker of power looms for the textile industry in the United States, they never lost sight of their beginnings and preserved this building, which became known as the Little Red Shop. To preserve the building, it was moved four times in its life, to allow for the growth of the company factories, eventually being placed in its current location on town parkland, where it now houses a collection of Draper textile machinery as the Little Red Shop Museum. The Little Red Stop is just one story with nine bays and is vernacular in style, with its notable decorative feature being the metal weathervane mounted at the roof over an elaborate saw-cut wooden base. 

John Gladding House // c.1825

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This vernacular, Federal period house on Union Street in Deep River, Connecticut, was built around 1825 for (and likely by) John Gladding. John worked in town as a joiner, a historic carpenter/woodworker, who either built houses or ships in the nearby Connecticut River. The Gladding House was likely originally built as a half cape, with a side hall entry and the two window bays to its left. As the family grew, the house was probably added onto to the right of the entry with the irregularly spaced bays. Houses like these that modestly grow and adapt to modernizations over time are what makes many New England villages great.

Mellen Law Office // c.1829

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Samuel H. Mann (1801-1838), a lawyer, acquired the Dr. Ebenezer Ames House on Cochituate Road in 1829, only a month before his marriage to Isabella Ross. At about that time, Mann built this small law office across the road from his home, where he would practice law. It is not clear why, but within a year, Mann sold the house and this law office to Judge Edward Mellen (1802-1875), who was appointed Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Court of Common Pleas in 1855 and practiced law in Wayland until his death in 1875. After his death, the law office sat largely vacant until during World War II, when a newsletter to soldiers, The Village Bugle, was published here. After this, a couple of businesses used the former law office in the 1950s and 1960s until the owner donated the lot to the Town of Wayland in 1971. The diminutive building is a charming, and well-preserved example of a vernacular, Federal period professional office building that mimics the form and materials of the Ames House to which it was long affiliated with.

Reeves-Goodell House // c.1816

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Built on a hill on Concord Road in Wayland, Massachusetts, the Reeves-Goodell House is a beautiful vernacular Federal period residence owned and occupied by a local builder and architect. The house was constructed by Henry Reeves (1789-1878), a local carpenter and descendant of Jacob Reeves (1720-1794) a tavern-keeper in town. In the 1920s, this property became the home of Edwin B. Goodell, Jr. (1893-1971), a prominent local architect who designed area houses before becoming a partner in the firm Andrews, Jones, Biscoe and Goodell of Boston. It was Goodell who added on the rear, three-bay addition to the residence, which blends in with the 1810s aesthetic. Interestingly, Edwin Goodell lived in this historic, vernacular house but designed some of the earliest International style modernist homes in New England.

Bow Old Town Hall // 1847

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The town of Bow, New Hampshire, was incorporated in 1727 and named after its location along a bend, or “bow” in the Merrimack River at its easternmost boundary. Early town meetings were held in the town meetinghouse of 1770, and the second meetinghouse of 1801, until the separation of church and state became official in New Hampshire in 1819, with the passage of the Toleration Act. Until 1819, residents in New Hampshire conducted town business and religious services in the same building, the town meetinghouse. However, as towns diversified and religious freedom prospered, citizens grew less comfortable supporting one particular religious denomination with taxpayer money. Bow eventually secured funding to erect its first purpose-built town hall in 1847, this vernacular, two-story building on Bow Center Road. The small building served as the town hall for over 100 years, when in 1957, a growing suburban population required a larger, more modern town hall. The old Town Hall of Bow now serves as a meeting place for Town organizations and is rented out to Town residents for events.

Simonsville Schoolhouse // 1856

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One-room schoolhouses like this example in the Simonsville area of Andover, Vermont, have been commonplace throughout rural portions of New England where children of most ages would share the classroom and be taught everything from basic spelling to math. The Simonsville schoolhouse was built in 1856 and is a typical example of a vernacular one-room schoolhouse in rural New England, with no frills or ornament, just a house of learning. The Simonsville Schoolhouse was converted to a residence sometime in the latter half of the 20th century and has been renovated, keeping the basic form and interior floorboards from the 1850s. The school-turned-home is currently (2025) listed for sale.

Pierce-Guild Lightning Splitter House // 1781

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The Pierce-Guild House at 53 Transit Street in the Fox Point neighborhood of Providence, Rhode Island, is one of the most iconic and photographed residences in the state. Known as a “lightning splitter”, the unique name is taken from local folklore that the sharp angle of the gable roof will deflect or split lightning if struck. Whether or not this superstition is true, the unique house form numbers to less than a dozen in Rhode Island. This house, arguably the most well-known for its location off Benefit Street, was originally built in 1781 as a modest 1-1/2-story cottage with a gambrel roof for Daniel Pierce (Pearce), a tailor. In 1844, the property was sold to George Guild, a grocer, who modernized the house by creating the massive gable roof to provide a narrow third floor, which was illuminated by the end windows and a diminutive dormer at the roof. The house retains much of its character, after a restoration by owners in the mid-late 20th century.

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!

Stonington Opera House // 1912

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The Stonington Opera House in Stonington, Maine, is a historic early 20th century community center and theater in a vernacular style. The theater was built in 1912, on the site of an earlier hall built in 1886, that seated more than 1,000 people and hosted national touring shows that arrive via steamboat from Rockland. The original theater was destroyed by fire in 1910 and was soon-after rebuilt. It continued the practice of the earlier facility, hosting theatrical productions, lectures, and community events. Its floor was covered with removable folding chairs, so that the space could be used for dances and other social events. It was fitted for screening films around 1918, which came to dominate its uses in the mid-20th century. Unlike other early theaters, which were generally incorporated into municipal buildings, this one was specifically built as a profit-making venture, and was designed to accommodate elaborate theatrical productions, and is probably the oldest of this type in the state. After being vacated for much of the later half of the 20th century, the Stonington Opera House was restored and reopened by Opera House Arts, a local nonprofit, in 2000, and is once again used primarily for film screenings and theatrical productions.

Scotland Town Hall // 1896

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The town of Scotland, Connecticut, is a rural community centered around agriculture and is the smallest municipality in Windham County’s ‘Quiet Corner‘. European settlement began in earnest following the purchase of 1,950 acres of land from then Windham, by Isaac Magoon, a Scotsman, who named the new village after his ancestral home. The present-day town hall and offices of Scotland, was originally built in the 1840s as a one-room schoolhouse. In 1894, the town voted to consolidate all the school districts in a single building, and to expand the one-room village school to accommodate them. The present two-story structure was completed in 1896 and was added to the front of the old building. It is unclear if anything remains of the original schoolhouse. The vernacular, Stick style building served as the town’s consolidated school until a modern school building was constructed in the 1960s. This building became the town hall/offices and remains a significant visual anchor to the town’s common.

West Cornwall Old Toll House // c.1800

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This modest, vernacular frame structure in West Cornwall, Connecticut, perhaps erected as early as 1800, has served a number of commercial purposes in its history, most significantly as a toll house. The structure was a toll booth for the two turnpikes which crossed near the site – the Sharon-Goshen Turnpike, and the Warren Turnpike, which ran along the Housatonic River. Before the days of EZ-Pass and transponders, travellers would pay their tolls to a worker in this building. Eventually the street became free to use, and the building was acquired for commercial use. It now serves as a showroom for a local cabinetmaker, but retains the original charm and historic sign above the door. How charming is that?

Georgetown Engine House No.5 // c.1860

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Following a devastating fire in Georgetown in 1874, local residents of the town petitioned at a town meeting to purchase a fire engine and a lot to erect a new engine house to prevent such a loss again. Within a year, voters approved not only the construction of a new engine house on Middle Street, near the commercial center of town, but also to move this charming single-engine firehouse at to a site to “the south part the town”. This structure was deemed inadequate for the dense commercial village and instead of demolishing it, town voters decided it could be relocated to another area and put to use. A volunteer company was formed for the new engine house and the small structure remained as a firehouse until the early 20th century when modern fire apparatus would no longer fit in the building. The building was sold by the town and has remained in private ownership since the 1920s, and its use is unknown to me, but the owners are doing a great job maintaining this significant structure.