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70 Beacon Street Follow Massachusetts Historical Commission Survey Manual instructions for completing this form. FORM B − BUILDING MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Photograph Topographic or Assessor's Map Recorded by: Bonnie Parsons Organization: PVPC Date (month / year): April, 2010 Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number 23A-211 Easthampton NTH.222 Town: Northampton Place: (neighborhood or village) Florence Address: 70 Beacon Street Historic Name: Frank and Fannie Look House Uses: Present: single-family residence Original: single-family residence Date of Construction: 1891-92 Source: Registry of Deeds, Directory Style/Form: Queen Anne Architect/Builder: Exterior Material: Foundation: brick Wall/Trim: clapboards, shingles, half-timbering Roof: asphalt. Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: garage Major Alterations (with dates): Condition: good Moved: no | x | yes | | Date Acreage: 0.778 Acres Setting: North-facing house has three large maple trees at its sidewalk border. This is a quiet, residential street. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [70 BEACON STREET] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 1 NTH.222 _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 Frank and Fanny Look House is a well-designed, Queen Anne house that is more restrained than its neighbor at 49 Beacon Street (that Fanny’s parents built) but equally strong in its stylistic character. It is a two-and-a-half story house that is gable-and- wing in plan. The eaves of the two sections of the house are relatively wide and are supported at the building corners by brackets. Following the Queen Anne interest in a visually active exterior surface, the house has clapboards on its first story, shingles on its second story, and half-timbering pattern in its gable field. In the angle between the gable and the wing of the house is a shed-roofed porch resting on posts and ornamented with a grid-patterned frieze. This grid pattern is repeated in the gable section of the house beneath the attic window. A shed roof dormer window is located on the upper porch roof and the shed roof form is repeated on the second story of the wing above a through-cornice window. There is an oriel window on the west elevation of the house and a side porch on the west that is glassed in at the first story, and open at the second story. Paired windows in the house are purely Queen Anne with multiple lights framing the upper sash and single lights on the lower sash. The house has three chimneys, one of which is an exterior wall chimney on the east elevation. Where many Queen Anne style houses in Northampton from the 1890s used turned posts, scroll-cut brackets and ornament of a curvilinear form, this house with its geometric grid ornament, low-profile shed roofs and simple posts was looking to a simplification of the style that it shared with the contemporary Shingle Style that began appearing in the 1890s. 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 1980, “This turn-of-the-century residence was built for Frank and Fanny Look. Frank Look was a prominent Florence industrialist, and his wife Fanny Burr Look was the daughter of George Burr, one of Florence’s leading industrialists, and obtained the land from her mother. The lot is at the river terrace drop-off and across the street from the Burrs. It was the first lot to be developed on the south side of Beacon Street. Mr. Look was connected with the Florence Sewing Machine Company and the Florence Manufacturing Company (later known as Prophylactic Brush Company) and served as treasurer and general manager of the latter concern. His name is memorialized in Look Park, 200 acres, further upstream on the Mill River that were donated to the city by his wife. Mrs. Look also provided funds for the development of the park and set up a trust fund for its upkeep. Look Park is the largest park in Northampton.” 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. Registry of Deeds: Book 447, Page 435. “A Chronicle of Industry on the Mill River”, Smith College Studies in History, vol. 21, nos. 1-4. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [70 BEACON STREET] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 2 NTH.222 National Register of Historic Places Criteria Statement Form Check all that apply: Individually eligible Eligible only in an historic district Contributing to a potential historic district Potential historic district Criteria: A B C D Criteria Considerations: A B C D E F G Statement of Significance by _____Bonnie Parsons___________________ The criteria that are checked in the above sections must be justified here. The Look House would contribute to a Beacon Street Historic District developed and resided in by some of Florence’s leading industrialists in the 1860s-1910s. As the home of Fanny Look whose father developed the area and the Looks themselves who were part of the industry of Florence, it is a house that links several industries, their owners and Florence’s history. The district represents the shift in Florence from neighborhoods that mixed mill workers’ housing with mill owners’ housing of the first half of the century to that of neighborhoods of economically- similar residents with, in this case, large lots, grand homes set back from a broad street. Architecturally, the district is significant for its range of high style homes and a church in the Stick Style, Italianate, Queen Anne and Tudor Revival styles. Further research would indicate which among them were architect-designed, as many certainly were. This is a fine example of the Queen Anne style.