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31 Dryads Green 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): January, 2010 Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number 31A-270-001 Easthampton NTH.575 Town: Northampton Place: (neighborhood or village) Address: 31 Dryads Green Historic Name: Michael and Katherine Dunphy House Uses: Present: single-family residence Original: single-family residence Date of Construction: ca. 1909 Source: Northampton street directories Style/Form: Colonial Revival Architect/Builder: Exterior Material: Foundation: brick Wall/Trim: clapboards, shingles Roof: asphalt shingles Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: Major Alterations (with dates): Condition: good Moved: no | x | yes | | Date Acreage: 0.235 acres Setting: This north-facing house is on a deeply shaded street in a row of similarly dated houses, set back from the street in alignment, and on ample lots. The Mill River passes to its south. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [31 Dryads Green ] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 1 NTH.575 _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 house is a fine example of Northampton’s Colonial Revival style residential architecture. It is two-and-a-half stories in height beneath a front-gabled roof that makes full returns on the north façade. It is three bays wide and three bays deep for a square plan. The house rests on brick foundations, has clapboards on the first floor, and shingles on the second floor and at attic level. A one-story porch wraps around north and east elevations, supported on pairs of fluted, ¾ length posts that in turn rest on a brick porch wall. The porch has a pedimented entry. The north façade is three bays wide with a side entrance, single 4/1 sash and a large fixed light window with a stained glass transom above it. At the second floor this bay is occupied by a shallow, three-sided bay window. In the north gable pediment is a very unusual, three-sided bay window that bows inward rather than outward. It is framed by a trabeated surround and its opening is supported by corner pilasters and two slender square posts. The east elevation of the house has a hipped, through-eaves dormer. The entry door to the house is vertically paneled below an Art Nouveau leaded glass panel. 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 about 1850 Northampton’s most expensive neighborhood was at the east end of the Center comprised of Pomeroy Terrace, King Street, and Philips Place. This is a neighborhood of Gothic Revival and Italianate style homes of considerable elegance. Elm Street became more rural the further west and north one traveled on it until the end of the 19th century. In 1889 two brothers-in-law, John Sullivan and J. C. Hammond, bought farmland on the south side of Elm Street owned by Daniel Clark and laid out Forbes Avenue. In 1890 the land that had been Clark’s cow pasture was then laid out by Sullivan and Hammond as Dryads Green, while a third developer Charles Crouch laid out Kensington Avenue. Sullivan and Hammond put in sewers, built the streets with curbing and concrete sidewalks, lined the streets with trees and divided up the land into house lots. Development of Harrison Avenue followed and turned the north and east side of Elm Street into the most expensive area in Northampton. Homes on Kensington Avenue and Dryads Green in 1895 ranged between $5,000 and $20,000. Dryads Green, which in large part, ran parallel to the Mill River became a sought-after street for the green that was located there, planted and maintained by one of the street’s first residents, George Cable, a writer, Abolitionist, and philanthropist. Dryads Green became known for the important writers, politicians and intellectuals that Cable entertained at his home “Tarryawhile” on Dryads Green. Between 1900 and 1910 Dryads Green was built up with houses owned by doctors, teachers, businessmen and scholars. One of the families that lived in this neighborhood for the longest period of time may be that of Michael and Katherine Dunphy who were second generation Irish immigrants. Michael Dunphy was a dentist and the Dunphy family is first listed in the directory between 1910 and 1919 at this address, though Michael was practicing dentistry as early as 1908 at 136 Main Street. They lived here according to the US census of 1920 with their children Englebert, Edwin, Donell, Margaret, and their maid, Josie Rodecka who had emigrated from Russia. The children grew up and left home but Michael remained in the house after Katherine’s death through 1960 and continued to practice dentistry through 1960 as well, though he later moved his office to 261 Main Street. By 1960 the house appears to have been divided into two units by Dunphy with Dorothy and Alfred Harris, II, living in the second unit. BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES Beers, F. W. County Atlas of Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, 1873. Massachusetts Historical Commission. Reconnaissance Reports, “Northampton”, 1982. Miller, D. L. Atlas of the City of Northampton and Town of Easthampton, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, Philadelphia, 1895. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [31 Dryads Green ] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 2 NTH.575 Northampton Directories 1910-1960. Sanborn Insurance Maps, Northampton, 1915. U. S. Federal censuses 1890-1930. Walker, George H. Atlas of Northampton City, Massachusetts, Boston, 1884. Massachusetts Historical Commission Community Property Address State Archives Facility 220 Morrissey Boulevard Northampton 31 Dryads Green Boston, Massachusetts 02125 Area(s) Form No. NTH.575 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. This property would contribute to a potential historic district that would encompass the residential/institutional side streets laid out from Elm Street in Northampton Center between Main Street on the east and the west boundary of Childs Park on the west. This potential historic district is significant according to criteria A and C and would have local significance. These residential streets are significant according to criterion A for their reflection of the development of Northampton from the mid-19th century as a relatively affluent community that supported several private schools for young women, which prepared them after 1875 for attendance at Smith College, and the Clarke School where deaf students were given an education that thoroughly prepared them for the hearing world. The residences in this area made a shift from gentlemen’s estates to accommodation of the growing middle class in Northampton during the 19th century with businessmen, scholars, teachers, doctors, and retired farmers. According to criterion C this district would be significant for the range of historical styles that it includes. Gothic Revival, Italianate, French Second Empire, Queen Anne and Colonial Revival styles are all well-represented within a landscape of individual large lots, and streetscapes that were laid out and developed at one time.