Loading...
198-200 Main Street 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 31D-159-001 Easthampton NTH. Town: Northampton Place: (neighborhood or village) Downtown Northampton Address: 198-200 Main Street Historic Name: Lewis Warner Building Uses: Present: Commercial/residential Original: Commercial Date of Construction: ca. 1884 Source: map of 1884 Style/Form: Queen Anne Architect/Builder: Exterior Material: Foundation: brick Wall/Trim: brick, metal, wood, limestone Roof: not visible Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: Major Alterations (with dates): First floor storefront will have been altered over time. Condition: good Moved: no | x | yes | | Date Acreage: 0.037 acres Setting: This building faces northwest at a curve in the street. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON ] [198-200 Main Street] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 1 NTH. ___ 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 Lewis Warner Building is a three-and-a-half story Queen Anne style brick building. The façade is a yellow-grey brick while the secondary walls are a red brick. The first story of the building has pedestrian doors recessed at each side of a single large display window, the whole beneath a steel lintel. At the second floor level are two metal and wood, shallow, angled bay wind ows separated by a single window for a three-bay elevation. A single cornice with a dentil row runs across the entire façade beneath the roof of the two bay windows, uniting the three bays. The third floor is also three bays wide, with pairs of windows in the outer bays and a single window in the center bay. All the windows have transom lights above their 1/1 sash (1 x 1 in the center bay) and have limestone lintels and sills. Above the third story the building has a blind attic level divided into three recessed panels above a brick entablature. The building is then crowned by a wide, projecting metal cornice with over-scaled modillion blocks. 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. The Lewis Warner Building was built ca. 1884 as it appears on the map of that date as the last building on the block. The man who invested in the building was Lewis Warner who was a bank cashier in 1880, living with his wife Susanna, children Mabel and Lewis and two servants, Nora Callahan and Nellie Mc Cawner.(sic.) in Northampton. Warner was a very active member of Hampshire County and Northampton’s government in the field of finance. In 1893 he was County Treasurer and between 1880 and 1893 he rose to become president of the Hampshire County National Bank at 150 Main Street. In city government he was president of the Board of Aldermen was on the joint standing committees of Finance and Fire Department. He was also on Northampton’s Trust Funds committee. Seemingly tireless, he was also simultaneously a vestryman at St. John’s Episcopal Church on Elm Street and a director of the Northampton Park Driving Association for horse racing. Lewis Warner disappears from directories and censuses after 1895. Our knowledge of the tenants of the buildings begins in 1895 when the first floor the commercial space was divided in half and one half was an express office and the other half was an undertaker. In 1902 the eastern half of the first floor was occupied by a barber and the western half the undertaker still occupied. There was also an undertaker next door. One of the upper floors, likely the third floor, was used as a hall for a fraternal order. By 1910 the entire first floor was occupied by a restaurant. The order had shifted by 1915 when the first floor had become a bakery, the second floor was occupied by a restaurant, and there was a banquet hall on the third floor. The same functions were in the building in 1930. 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.