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19 Tyler Court 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): January, 2010 Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number 31B-176-001 Easthampton NTH.2462 Town: Northampton Place: (neighborhood or village) Address: 19 Tyler Court Historic Name: Ysabel Swan Swertfager House Uses: Present: Single-family residence Original: Single-family residence Date of Construction: 1931 Source: Northampton Directories; Registry of Deeds Style/Form: Colonial Revival Architect/Builder: Exterior Material: Foundation: brick Wall/Trim: wood shingles Roof: asphalt shingles Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: Major Alterations (with dates): Condition: good Moved: no | x | yes | | Date Acreage: 0.24 acres Setting: South facing house sits on a crest that runs along Tyler Court with a distance view to the south. A wood picket fence borders the lot. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [19 TYLER COURT] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 1 NTH.2462 _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 house is one of three fine Colonial Revival style houses on Tyler Court. It is a two-and-a-half story house under a side- gable, asphalt shingled roof with an exterior end-wall chimney on the east elevation. It is five bays wide and two bays deep, rests on brick foundations and is wood shingle sided. There is a one-story porch on columns on the east elevation of the south- facing house. A row of dentils ornaments the eaves line, and sash is 6/6. A highly unusual portico is the chief ornament of the house. It is one story, has a serpentine roof, and is glass-enclosed in its upper half with fixed 6-light panels. Within the arch of the portico roof is a fanlight. With its neighbors at 3 and 25 Tyler Court this house creates a Colonial Revival architectural display with brick, clapboards and shingle variations. 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. Tyler Court was laid out as a new Northampton street with six lots in 1929. The land had belonged to Henry M. Tyler, a professor Greek and Literature at Smith College, who sold it in 1928, together with his house at 44 Prospect Street to Eugene J. McCarthy. McCarthy was a very active developer speculating in land in many of the Connecticut River Valley towns: Easthampton, Northampton, Amherst, Hatfield and more. A Northampton resident at 117 South Street with his wife Anna, he was responsible for much of the land development on Crescent Street, in both Florence and Leeds as well. After Tyler’s house was taken down, the lots sold within a few years. Two were sold to Ysabel Swan in 1930 and 1931: Lots 2 and 3 at 19 Tyler Court, a double lot. Ysabel Swan was a middle-aged woman in 1930 who was living with her mother and widowed aunt at 88 Round Hill Road. She did not have an occupation, but the following year, her mother and Aunt had been dropped from the Directories and Ysabel had built this house and moved from Round Hill Road. By 1943 when she was 68 years old, she had married George Swertfager, and continued to live in the house after his death ca. 1948. She remained in the house through 1960. After selling this property Rev. Henry Tyler moved to a rental and at the age of 86 in 1930 was president of the Northampton Street Railway Company, though he died the following year. Tyler had always been active in academic, religious and commercial institutions. He was a deacon and on the Board of Directors of the Edwards Church in the 1890s, was president of the YMCA for a number of years, retired from Smith by 1925 when he became president of the Northampton Institute for Savings. The development of Tyler Court represents the increasing residential density that took place in Northampton as one of the urb an centers of western Massachusetts, a college town, a manufacturing and commercial center. Its residents were from 1929 a mix of educators, company owners and officers, and independently wealthy individuals – a mix not unlike that of previous decades on Prospect Street, but now concentrated on smaller lots in the increasingly suburbanizing city. BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES U.S. Federal Censuses, 1910-1930. Northampton Directories, 1900-1960. Hampshire County Registry of Deeds, Plan Book 13 Page 71A, 1929; Deed Book 849, page 33, 1928; Book 862 page 281, 1930; Book 863 Page 25, 1931. Massachusetts Historical Commission Community Property Address State Archives Facility 220 Morrissey Boulevard Northampton 19 Tyler Court Boston, Massachusetts 02125 Area(s) Form No. NTH.2462 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.