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50 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): February, 2010 Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number 31 A-248-001 Easthampton NTH.554 Town: Northampton Place: (neighborhood or village) Address: 50 Dryads Green Historic Name: William J. Miller House Uses: Present: single-family residence Original: single-family residence Date of Construction: 1910-1919 Source: Northampton Directories Style/Form: Colonial Revival Architect/Builder: Exterior Material: Foundation: brick Wall/Trim: clapboards and shingles Roof: asphalt shingles Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: garage Major Alterations (with dates): Condition: good Moved: no | x | yes | | Date Acreage: 0.115 acres Setting: This house occupies a raised corner lot in a shady residential area. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [50 DRYADS GREEN] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 1 NTH.554 _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 large-scale, two-and-a-half story Colonial Revival style house. It is only three bays wide and three bays deep but the proportions of the house are typical of the late Colonial Revival style and are grand. It has a side-gable roof that has a transverse gable on the north and a front-gabled dormer on the south. The roof’s eaves have a broad overhang ornamented with brackets and they make full returns in the gable ends, which are again bracketed. The house has clapboards on the first floor and shingles above, as is typical of the Colonial Revival style, and there is an overhang or jetty between stories. Similar to its early Tudor Revival style neighbor at 31 Dryads Green, the Stronach House uses a slightly triangular-shaped overhanging cross beam supported on brackets in the gable of its dormer. This feature appears in the Queen Anne style but becomes more popular in the Tudor Revival style. The south façade of the house has a center entry beneath a hipped roof portico on Colonial Revival Doric columns. Its flanking windows have architrave surrounds. The northeast corner of the house has a projecting three-sided bay. There is a garage on the north side of the house. 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. This house was one of the last houses to be constructed on the east end of Dryads Green, which had been laid out between 1890 and 1895 by two developers and brothers-in-law, J. C. Hammond and John Sullivan. Hammond and Sullivan followed up on the development that Charles Crouch began in 1890 by putting in Kensington Avenue from Elm Street. All three developers were responding to the demand for new housing that had begun in the 1870s and persisted into the 20th century. Between 1870 and 1915 Northampton’s population grew 113% as its cutlery, textile, and brush manufacturing grew and drew workers at all levels to the City. It was a period in which a middle class was developing and joining the well-to-do citizens of Northampton in and around Round Hill in the Center. The first traceable resident in this house using street directories is Professor of Geology at Smith College, William J. Miller in 1919. Miller’s ownership was relatively short, however, as the house next went to Irving and Evelyn Stronach who lived here for over twenty years beginning around 1930. Unlike many of the houses in this neighborhood that were owned by Smith College and rented to faculty members, this house was privately owned. Irving worked in Easthampton as a factory superintendent and the Stronach’s two children Barbara and Irving, Jr. attended Northampton schools. By 1950 the house had changed hands and Ann and Hugh Tatlock lived here and Hugh practiced medicine in Northampton. The Tatlocks had moved by 1960, replaced by Rita and Jules Mervin. Both Mervins worked at Smith College as faculty members as did many of their immediate neighbors on Dryads Green, Kensington Avenue and Paradise Road, but the house appears to have remained privately owned. 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. 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 50 Dryads Green Boston, Massachusetts 02125 Area(s) Form No. NTH.554 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.