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65 Henshaw 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: PVPC Date (month / year): 1/2010 Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number 31B-085-001 Easthampton NTH.2454 Town: Northampton Place: (neighborhood or village) Address: 65 Henshaw Avenue Historic Name: Charles and Edith Walker House Uses: Present: single-family residence Original: single-family residence Date of Construction: 1907 Source: Registry of Deeds Style/Form: Colonial Revival Bungalow Architect/Builder: Exterior Material: Foundation: brick Wall/Trim: clapboards, shingles, stucco Roof: slate Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: Major Alterations (with dates): Condition: good Moved: no | x | yes | | Date Acreage: 0.13 acres Setting: The house sits on a lot that slopes away and down to the east on a tree-lined residential/institutional street. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [65 Henshaw Avenue] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 1 NTH.2454 ___ 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 may be unique in Northampton as it is a front-dormer bungalow with a double end-ridge roof. The house is one-and- a-half stories in height under a slate-covered, side-gable roof with two parallel ridges at each gable end, between which is a center chimney. The length of the double ridge is not visible from the street. The roof extends in true bungalow fashion to create a full-width and deep porch on the west façade supported on ¾ height Doric columns above a solid, stucco porch wall. The body of the house is clapboard on the first floor, and has shingles and stucco on the dormer, so the exterior has a mixed- material surface. Foundations are brick and are exposed for a full story basement on the east elevation. One of the elements that gives the house a Colonial Revival style is the use of wide eaves overhangs that make full returns in the gable ends, ornamented with curved brackets suggestive of small consoles. This feature is found at the main roof eaves and on the north elevation at a jetty between stories. It is also found at the pent roof that bisects the center, front-gabled dormer. At the northeast corner of the house a flight of exterior stairs leads to an open porch on the east elevation. The porch is supported on slender Doric columns. While the bungalow became a popular form in Northampton and there are many examples, this is one of the most high-style and best-preserved among them. 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. Henshaw Avenue was a short street leading north from Elm Street in the 1870s to about 37 Henshaw Avenue. As Northampton’s population grew by 113.1% between 1870 and 1915, additional housing areas were needed and the center of the city became the choicest area for the new middle class created by Northampton’s industries, educational institutions, and commerce. In the late 1880s the street extended as far as what was then Park Street but is now Trumbull Road. As land around the few large estates on Henshaw was slowly divided additional houses were built and continued to fill in into the 1910s. This house was one of those added late, in 1907, due to its narrow lot, no doubt, that had remained unbuilt-upon as it slopes precipitously down to the east. The single lot was divided into two lots and on this the more northerly of the two, a house was built for Charles and Edith Walker. Charles Walker was in business with his father Oliver W. Walker in insurance and real estate, and the Walkers had a Lithuanian servant Stacia living with them. Later the Walkers were to have two daughters Louise and Margerie and had an English children’s nurse Ethel Wiske living with them. By 1930 things had changed significantly for the Walkers. Edith is no longer listed and Charles, his children, and his sister Cara had moved in with their father Oliver on Round Hill Road where they had two servants for the household. In the Walkers’ place on Henshaw were Pauline and Merton Webster. Merton was a box manufacturer, one of the industries that had prospered during the turn-of-the-century. They were followed in 1940 by Virginia and Milton Alberts. Milton owned Jean’s women’s clothing store in Northampton. By 1950 the house was owned by Alexander Borowski a real estate and insurance broker whose business is still operating in Northampton. It had been sold in 1960 to Gertrude and David C. Huntington, who was a Smith College professor. From insurance and real estate businessman to manufacturer, merchant, and academic, the occupants of this house have reflected the principal occupations of the middle class that characterized the residents of Northampton center’s most prestigious streets. BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES Beers, F. W. County Atlas of Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, 1873. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [65 Henshaw Avenue] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 2 NTH.2454 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 65 Henshaw Avenue Boston, Massachusetts 02125 Area(s) Form No. NTH.2454 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.