College Lane greenhouse.pdf
Follow Massachusetts Historical Commission Survey Manual instructions for completing this form. FORM B − BUILDING MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING
220MORRISSEY BOULEVARD BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Photograph Topographic or Assessor's Map Please see continuation sheet. Recorded by: Bonnie Parsons Organization: Pioneer Valley Planning
Commission Date (month /year): March, 2010 Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number 31D-2 Easthampton NTH.725 Town: Northampton Place: (neighborhood or village) Smith College
Campus Address: College Lane Historic Name: Smith College Plant House and Greenhouses Uses: Present: plant house, exhibition space, and greenhouses Original: plant house and greenhouses
Date of Construction: 1895 Source: Smith College Archives Style/Form: Queen Anne Architect/Builder: Lord and Burnham, greenhouse designers Exterior Material: Foundation: brick Wall/Trim:
brick, glass, metal Roof: slate, glass Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: Major Alterations (with with dates): Condition: good Moved: no | x | yes | | Date Acreage: 2.51 acres Setting:
This complex is situated on the east side of Paradise Pond and north of the Smith College specimen gardens.
INVENTORY FORMB CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [College Lane] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet
1 NTH.725 _x__ Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. If checked, you must attach a completed National Register Criteria Statement form. Use as much space
as necessary to complete the following entries, allowing text to flow onto additional continuation sheets. ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION: Describe architectural features. Evaluate the characteristics
of this building in terms of other buildings within the community. The Queen Anne style Lyman Plant House is a one-and-a-half story brick building that consists of a front-gabled main
building with two brick wings on the south and one glass and metal wing on the north for a wide, rectangular plan. The main block is brick with a shingled front-gable and it has an entry
portico on curved braces. It is three bays wide. Separating the first floor from the gable field is a wide wood frieze. The first wing on the south has a copper trimmed hipped roof and
a transverse front-gable. It is three bays wide. Beneath the transverse gable is a secondary entry, flanked by paired 1/1 sash windows. Set slightly back from the plane of the facades
is the second wing on the south. It is also three bays wide and has a hipped roof. The north wing is a glass-front, contemporary addition behind a pergola porch. Extending to the east
from the brick plant house and its wings are two, parallel greenhouse ells with copper cresting rails marking their roof ridges. The greenhouses are glass within metal framework, one
story in height, that extend eastward under gable shaped roofs but then rise to the equivalent of two and three stories under a hipped shaped roof on the north and under a rounded or
curvilinear hipped shape on the south. The south greenhouse has a wing that extends to the south. It is one-story in height and shares the curvilinear shape of the main south greenhouse.
These are elegantly shaped structures whose antecedent was the Crystal Palace of 1851 in Hyde Park, England designed by Joseph Paxton and constructed of glass in a cast iron and steel
framework and included a curvinlinear arched vault. HISTORICAL NARRATIVE Discuss the history of the building. Explain its associations with local (or state) history. Include uses of
the building, and the role(s) the owners/occupants played within the community. From the Form B of 1976, “Smith College was given the Lyman Plant House in 1896 by the Lyman family of
Northampton as a memorial to Anne Lyman. The Lyman family made later donations to expand the greenhouse facilities. The planthouse and attached greenhouses represent one aspect of the
College’s interest in providing opportunities for the study of botany. The College grounds, originally laid out by the Olmsted Landscaping firm, contain specimens of rare trees and shrubs.”
The greenhouses were designed and manufactured by Lord and Burnham, a company that began in 1856 in Syracuse, New York and eventually moved to Irvington, New York near the Hudson River
and the great estates that were built on the river. Lord and Burnham successfully experimented in a metal framework and large panes of glass and developed Victorian shapes for the greenhouses
that they used at both private homes and large conservatories such as the New York Botanical gardens and the Conservatory of Flowers in San Francisco’s Gold Gate Park. BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or
REFERENCES Beers, F. W. County Atlas of Hampshire Massachusetts, New York, 1873. Hales, John G. Plan of the Town or Northampton in the County of Hampshire, 1831. Miller, D. L. Atlas
of the City of Northampton and Town of Easthampton, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, Philadelphia, 1895. Walker, George H. and Company. Atlas of Northampton City, Massachusetts, Boston,
1884. Walling, Henry F. Map of Hampshire County, Massachusetts, New York, 1860.
INVENTORY FORMB CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [College Lane] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet
2 NTH.725