44 Round Hill Road
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): April, 2011
Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number
31B-004-001 Easthampton NTH.
Town: Northampton
Place: (neighborhood or village)
Address: 44 Round Hill Road
Historic Name: Engineer’s Cottage
Uses: Present: Single-family house
Original: Single-family house
Date of Construction: 1935
Source: Clarke School literature
Style/Form: Colonial Revival
Architect/Builder: A. Lincoln Fechheimer, architect,
attributed. Exterior Material:
Foundation: poured concrete
Wall/Trim: brick, clapboards
Roof: slate
Outbuildings/Secondary Structures:
Major Alterations (with dates):
Condition: good
Moved: no | x | yes | | Date
Acreage: 7.4 acres
Setting: This house is set on the west side of Round Hill’s
crest on a gentle slope to the west. It is heavily shaded by
mature trees.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON ] [44 Round Hill Road]
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 1
NTH.
_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 Colonial Revival style house, one-and-a-half stories in height under a gambrel roof. The house is brick in construction
and has a slate roof with two, front-gabled dormers. It rests on poured concrete foundations that have been horizontally scored.
Wide clapboards ornament the gable ends of the house and of the dormers. Three bays wide, the Engineers Cottage has a
center entry whose trabeated surround is an imaginative composition of wood panels rather than the more common pilasters
and entablature. Windows in the house are 6/6 and have paneled shutters with fan-like cutouts. The house is two bays deep
and two bands of windows nearly meet at the north west corner to add light to the interior.
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 small cottage located at the right side of the Boiler House is known as the Engineer’s Cottage and shares features with
Coolidge and Skinner Halls to the extent that it is probably the work of the same architect, A. Lincoln Fechheimer. Besides the
Engineer’s Cottage, documented work of his was Skinner Hall, Coolidge Hall, and Hubbard Hall. Fechheimer was in the class of
1891 at the Clarke School for the Deaf and returned to design for the school in the 1930s. He was an Ohio architect trained at
Columbia University and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He began practice in Cincinnati in 1906 in partnership with Harry
Hake and then with Benjamin L. Ihorst into the 1940s, and specialized in school campus work.
Clarke School engineers who have lived here are William H. and Lena Ashley who were her 1920-1930, Jessie and Raymond
Sanders in 1940 through 1950.
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 ] [44 Round Hill Road]
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 2
NTH.
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 Round Hill Historic District. This potential historic district is significant according to criteria A
and C and would have local significance.
The residential streets that cross Round Hill are significant according to criterion A for their reflection of development in Northampton from
the early 19th century (1807) through the 1950s. Residential development began on Round Hill with the establishment of gentleman’s estates
but grew with schools and a resort hotel until the 1890s when residential development increased significantly. From the 1890s through the
1950s (1959 McAlister Infirmary) Round Hill became home to Northampton’s wealthy and to the Clarke School for the Deaf.
Architecturally this area of Northampton is significant for the range of residential architectural styles including the Queen Anne and Colonial
Revival, and for its institutional buildings in the French Second Empire, through High Victorian Gothic and Colonial Revival styles ending
with the American International style. The potential district has integrity of workmanship, design, feeling, association, and materials.