1-7 Graves Avenue
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): March, 2010
Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number
32A-91 Easthampton NTH.846
Town: Northampton
Place: (neighborhood or village)
Address: 1-7 Graves Avenue
Historic Name: Dr. David Hall Rowhouses
Uses: Present: Rowhouses
Original: Rowhouses
Date of Construction: 1885-1895
Source: Registry of Deeds & Atlas
Style/Form: Queen Anne
Architect/Builder:
Exterior Material:
Foundation: brick
Wall/Trim: clapboards, shingles
Roof: asphalt shingles
Outbuildings/Secondary Structures:
Major Alterations (with dates):
Windows replaced, ca. 2005.
Condition: good
Moved: no | x | yes | | Date
Acreage: 0.82 acres
Setting: This building faces north at the entry to a
dead end, residential street.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON ] [1-7 GRAVES AVENUE]
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 1
NTH.846
___ 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 well-maintained set of Queen Anne style frame rowhouses is two-and-a-half stories in height under a side-gable roof. The
eight-bay façade has two projecting, shed-roof pavilions that contain two, side-by-side doors crossed by hipped roof porches on
three turned posts with brackets at the eaves. The porches have one-story, three-sided, angled bay windows at each side, one
per rowhouse unit. Six dormers with front-gable roof are aligned on the north façade roof. The two dormers over the pavilions
are larger in size and contain in their gable ends embellished King Post trusses. The siding of the block is typically Queen Anne
with a band of shingles bordered by stringcourses separate the clapboards of first and second stories. The frieze below the
eaves is made of vertical siding.
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 Form B of 1980: “In 1884, Henry B. Graves filed a subdivision plan for Graves Avenue. This street was opened off Market
Street, through the Graves homestead. This was the last remaining Colonial homestead on Market Street, with the others
having been subdivided earlier in the 19th century.
The street was quickly developed and by 1895, fourteen of the present fifteen residential buildings had been
constructed. There were a mixture of residential types including single-family houses, double houses, a “triple-decker’ and
several rowhouses of varying lengths. This led to the local paper calling Graves Avenue ‘our most citified street.’
In 1885, David Hall, a physician at the Northampton State Hospital bought lot no. 2 on Graves’ plan. This corner lot was
soon developed with this four tenement row.”
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: Bk. 398-P.87