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49 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): March, 2010 Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number 31B-6 Easthampton NTH.594 Town: Northampton Place: (neighborhood or village) Address: 49 Round Hill Road Historic Name: Shepherd House-Rogers Hall Uses: Present: School Original: Single-family house Date of Construction: early 19th century with later additions Source: Northampton Book, Gazette Style/Form: French Second Empire Architect/Builder: Exterior Material: Foundation: brick Wall/Trim: brick Roof: slate Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: Major Alterations (with dates): Wings added on north and south and on east. Various dates. Condition: good Moved: no | x | yes | | Date Acreage: 2.34 acres Setting: This buildings is set on the crest of a hill that slopes down to both the east and the south. It is shaded by a row of street trees. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON ] [49 ROUND HILL ROAD] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 1 NTH.594 _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 Shepherd House-Rogers Hall is a large institutional building, two-and-a-half stories in height with a m ansard roof. The brick building is additive in appearance with three main sections and an ell on the east. The building’s three sections are west-facing. On the south end is a five-bay section with a center entry. It is the most residential in appearance of the three. It is followed by a four-bay section whose façade is set back to give it the appearance of a connector. There is no entry into this section. The façade of the north section is in the same plane as the south section and it is the equivalent of eleven bays long. There is a three-story ell attached to the east elevation of this section at its northeast corner. The north section’s entry is centered on the last three bays of its south end. It is slightly recessed and has a trabeated surround framing an Italianate style glass and panel door below a high transom light. Above the north entry at the second story is a triple composition window. The two entries to the building at north and south are similar as they have projecting pedimented porticoes. On the north the copper-roofed portico rests on chamfered posts and on the south the copper-roofed portico rests on Doric columns. The one on the south is smaller than its north counterpart. The mansard roof unites the three sections and has inset, segmentally-arched dormers on its lower slope and brackets support its ample eaves. Windows in the building have straight lintels and 6/6 sash. Although a section of the building was built in 1806, that section is no longer apparent, so none of its presumably Federal style remains. 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 1975: “Round Hill is a small hill northwest of the central business district in Northampton. It has traditionally been the site of innovative social and cultural experiments and an exclusive residential area. Historian George Bancroft conducted a school on the Hill in the 1820s and later in the century a water cure and hotel established the hill as a resort for the wealthy. Clarke School was first conceived by John Clarke, who, in 1867, set aside $50,000 for the creation of a school for deaf mutes. The institution was chartered by the legislature in 1867 and opened that year with twenty pupils in the old Gothic Seminary building on Gothic Street. A handful of students from a school for the deaf in Chelmsford joined the group; their instructress Miss Rodgers came to manage the Clarke School and remained principal until 1886. By that time, the school had acquired considerable property from Josiah Clark, Harvey Kirkland, and the Round Hill Hotel. The School later acquired the Williston properties and has adapted many of the original structures to institutional uses. Rogers Hall was originally the property of the Shepherd family, early residents of the hill.” From historical description of Clarke School: “Rogers Hall, the first residence erected on Round Hill, was built in 1806 by Thomas Shepherd. The granite blocks for its construction were drawn by oxen from a quarry in Middlefield, 25 miles a way. It housed the famous Round Hill School for Boys headed by George Bancroft and Joseph Cogswell from 1823 to 1834. Bancroft wrote The History of the United States there, and in 1845 he became Secretary of the Navy under President James K. Polk and established the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Cogswell was a teacher of the poet Julia Ward Howe. The Marquis De Lafayette of France, hero of the American Revolution, visited the school in 1825. In 1848, Rogers Hall and Dudley Hall became part of the "Round Hill Water Cure Retreat." Clarke bought it in 1870 and converted it into a dormitory for girls. Named for Harriet B. Rogers, the school's first principal, it was also the principals' residence until 1936. From 1876 to 1973, it was a dormitory for Upper School students and since 1976, when it was completely renovated and connected by a new corridor to Hubbard Hall, it has served as a library, administrative and classroom building.” INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON ] [49 ROUND HILL ROAD] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 2 NTH.594 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 ] [49 ROUND HILL ROAD] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 3 NTH.594 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. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON ] [49 ROUND HILL ROAD] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 4 NTH.594 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.