Loading...
64 Harrison 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 31A-221 Easthampton NTH.533 Town: Northampton Place: (neighborhood or village) Address: 64 Harrison Avenue Historic Name: Rev. Andrew Underhill House Uses: Present: Single-family residence Original: Single-family residence Date of Construction: 1895-1915 Source: Atlases Style/Form: Colonial Revival Architect/Builder: Exterior Material: Foundation: brick Wall/Trim: clapboards, shingles Roof: asphalt Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: Garage Major Alterations (with dates): Condition: good Moved: no | x | yes | | Date Acreage: 0.204 acres Setting: This house faces northwest on a quiet, residential street. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON ] [64 HARRISON AVENUE] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 1 NTH.533 __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 Underhill House is a Colonial Revival style house whose design is a free interpretation of early Colonial elements, giving it what would have been a very contemporary look ca. 1895-1900. It is two-and-a-half stories under a front-gable roof and its eaves are overly-broad and supported on over-sized brackets where earlier would have been a moderate eave with a fine dentil row at the cornice. Hipped roof dormers on north and south repeat the eaves details of the main roof. The house is essentially two bays wide and three bays deep, but its scale is large and generous. The side hall entry on the west façade illustrates the enlarged scale of the house as it is a broad trabeated surround with wide sidelights and an extended transom light. Windows in the house are mainly 6/1 but there is also a large fixed-light window at the first story with a leaded glass transom above it. The exterior has clapboards on the first story and shingles above. A hipped roof porch on ¾ length square posts crosses the west façade and wraps to the south elevation. The paired posts rest on high brick piers, a feature that developed with the Prairie Style after 1900. A pediment marks the location of the stairs to the porch. An unusual detail that this house shares with its neighbor at 31 Dryad’s Green is the unusual concave window composition in the west gable field. Two pilasters and two posts support an entablature in the gable field, while three small windows are recessed in a semi-circle behind the opening. 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: “Harrison Avenue was opened in 1890 by J.C. Hammond and J.A. Sullivan. They had bought the Daniel W. Clark property on Elm Street, which extended southwesterly almost to the Mill River, in the late 1880’s, and quickly developed residential lots on the new street. Most of the houses were built in the turn of the century period and the street became one of the most fashionable in the city. This house was built in 1909 at a cost of $7500 for Barrett and O’Brien, local developers. It is the exact mirror image of a house at 31 Dryad’s Green, also built for Barrett and O’Brien in 1909. The first known owner of this house was the Rev. Andrew Underhill, pastor of St. John’s Episcopal Church on Elm Street.” 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. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON ] [64 HARRISON AVENUE] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 2 NTH.533 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 on the south side of 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.