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36 Butler Place 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: Pioneer Valley Planning Commission Date (month / year): June, 2010 Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number 32A-205 Easthampton NTH.2094 Town: Northampton Place: (neighborhood or village) Address: 36 Butler Place Historic Name: Leo H. and Hettie Porter House Uses: Present: single-family house Original: single-family house Date of Construction: 1893-94 Source: Registry of Deeds Style/Form: Colonial Revival Architect/Builder: Putnam and Bayley, architects Exterior Material: Foundation: brick Wall/Trim: clapboards Roof: asphalt shingle Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: one-bay garage Major Alterations (with dates): Condition: good Moved: no | x | yes | | Date Acreage: 0.138 acres Setting: This is a south-facing house with a large old maple in its front yard. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [36 BUTLER PLACE] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 1 NTH.2094 __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. This is a high style Colonial Revival house two-and-a-half stories beneath a side-gable roof with a transverse gambrel bay on its south façade. The house is three bays wide and three deep and the eaves make full returns on east and west elevations. Modillion blocks ornament the eaves. The house is entered on the south beneath a broad pedimented porch with festooning and shell motifs in its tympanum. The porch rests on triple Doric columns and respondent pilasters. The south entry is flanked by small stair windows with ornamental muntins. The gambrel bay at the first floor has three windows with transoms whose muntins are interlocking semicircles and have lintels with modillion block décor. At the second story the bay is square and extends over the first story. The third story of the gambrel bay has a Palladian window composition in its field. A front-gabled dormer with an arched fanlight for its upper sash is on the roof of the south façade. There is a rounded one-story bay on the west elevation along with a hooded door. On the east elevation is a through-cornice chimney. 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 1975, “Butler Place was opened in 1892 at which time Sarah M. Butler divided the Butler land extending from Hawley Street to Pomeroy Terrace into a dozen or so parcels. Leo Porter purchased a small lot, #5, in 1893 with the agreement that ‘the grantee agrees not to erect any building nearer than 12’ from the inside line of the sidewalk. (458.178).’ Leo Porter was a railroad freight agent in 1900 and this house was in a convenient location to the railroad line in eastern Northampton. Leo and Harriet, or Hettie, were living with Leo’s mother in the house in 1900, and the three continued to live here through 1910 when a daughter Mary was added to the household along with a servant, Catherine Lawley. Leo, however, had left the railroad and had opened his own business, an automobile garage - a response to the growing number of family-owned automobiles in Northampton. By 1917 the Porters had moved down the block to 11 Butler Place and Leo had retired. They were replaced in this house by Mrs. Dora Michelman, a widow, whose husband Isaac had owned the I. Michelman store that sold clothing and shoes on Main Street. Butler Place was home to a number of people who worked in Main Street stores and institutions. Dora’s son Samuel and his wife Ida kept the house in the family through 1937. Samuel was president and treasurer of the Northampton Loan and Finance Company. The architects of the house Roswell Field Putnam and Lewis D. Bayley whose office was on Main Street in Northampton in 1893, making this one of the first houses they designed. Putnam continued to work in Northampton for many years taking into the firm his son Karl Scott Putnam. The elder Putnam was active in designing many of the homes for the wealthier residents of Northampton as he was fully conversant in the styles that marked the turn-of-the-century. BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES Beers, F. W. County Atlas of Hampshire Massachusetts, New York, 1873. Dailey Hampshire Gazette 12 January 1894. Hales, John G. Plan of the Town or Northampton in the County of Hampshire, 1831. Northampton Directories 1893- Miller, D. L. Atlas of the City of Northampton and Town of Easthampton, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, Philadelphia, 1895. Registry of Deeds, Book 1378 Page 179; Book 1322 Page 428; Book 1154 Page 456; Book 1099 Page 173; Book 1077 page 397; Book 1056 Page 383; Book 711 page 492; Book 711 page 98; Book 711 page 183; Book 516 page 203; Book 466 page 171; book 458 page 178; Plan of Land 448 page 259; Plan 34 page 68; Plan 34 page 32. U.S. Federal censuses 1900-1920. Walker, George H. and Company. Atlas of Northampton City, Massachusetts, Boston, 1884. Walling, Henry F. Map of Hampshire County, Massachusetts, New York, 1860. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [36 BUTLER PLACE] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 2 NTH.2094 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 Porter House would contribute to a potential Pomeroy Terrace historic district that developed south and east of the Bridge Street Cemetery from the second third of the 19th century as Northampton’s finest residential district. Original residents here were merchants, retired farmers, lawyers, and other professions. As the century progressed the adjacent streets were laid out for the growing middle class with railroad personnel joining clerks, teachers, and others. Architecturally the potential historic district is significant for the fine examples of the 19th century architectural styles from the Greek and Gothic Revivals, Italianate, Queen Anne and Colonial Revival styles. The district includes significant examples of the work of Northampton architect William Fenno Pratt. The Porter House, however, is the work of Northampton architects Putnam and Bailey. This potential historic district has integrity of workmanship, feeling, setting, design and materials.