Fruitlands Museums Historic District
| Fruitlands Museums Historic District | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| National Register of Historic Places | |||
| Historic District | |||
 View of the museum grounds, 2009 |
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| location | Harvard , Massachusetts , United States | ||
| Coordinates | 42 ° 30 '30.4 " N , 71 ° 36' 43.6" W | ||
| surface | 130 acres (52.6 ha ) | ||
| NRHP number | 97000439 | ||
| Data | |||
| The NRHP added | May 23, 1997 | ||
| Declared as HD | May 23, 1997 | ||
Under the name Fruitlands Museums Historic District , a 53- acre area in the urban area of Harvard in the state of Massachusetts in the United States has been registered as a Historic District in the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) since 1997 . Only three of the total of 28 buildings and other objects on the site were classified as not contributing to the historical significance ( noncontributing ). One of the main components of the district is the house of the former Fruitlands commune , after which the area was named and which has its own entry in the NRHP as a National Historic Landmark . The museum has been owned by the Trustees of Reservations since 2016 .
description
Extending west from Prospect Hill Road to the tracks of the Boston and Maine Railroad and the Oxbow National Wildlife Refuge, the museum grounds are an integral part of preserving Harvard's historic and scenic landscapes. The complex was put together by Clara Endicott Sears between 1910 and 1960 and essentially includes the remains of the now defunct country house The Pergolas , four museums and a number of other individual buildings. Some structures were moved from other locations to the museum grounds, others were designed and rebuilt explicitly for museum purposes. Little by little, Sears bought most of the historic homesteads in the area, and prior to land claiming for Fort Devens and the Oxbow National Wildlife Refuge, their property expanded westward beyond the railroad tracks.
The pergolas
The house, which was built in 1910 based on the designs of Clara Sears, had to be demolished after her death in 1960 due to its disrepair (“wonderful design, but poor construction”), but it was architecturally very interesting. The main entrance had an Ionic portico on which a balcony richly decorated with iron was enthroned. The portico was from her great-grandfather Joseph Peabody's home in Salem, Massachusetts and is now in the holdings of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem. The large house, used by Sears as a summer retreat , had a drawing room that spanned the entire south side of the building, while the dining room and library were north of the central entrance hall. Sears had reserved a separate room for her landscape paintings . The grounds included formal gardens, a cloister with various statues, and a crescent-shaped pergola with eight Byzantine columns.
Garden shed
The garden house to the south of the museum building is one of only a few existing outbuildings of The Pergolas and was built in 1912 for the gardener who was also employed as a chauffeur ; therefore the building has an annex with three garage spaces. It is equipped with a gable roof , one and a half stories high and has dormers with a pent roof .
Fruitlands
After Clara Sears found out that Fruitlands Municipality was located on her neighboring property in the mid-19th century, she bought the plot in 1913 and began restoration work on the then dilapidated house. These were designed to restore the state around 1843. Due to the conception as a museum building, however, some sub-areas were also geared towards the colonial era as a whole - and thus towards an earlier period.
Knight-Dudley House
This building now serves as the museum director's residence and was relocated from its original, nearby location to its current location in 1946. It was built in the late 18th century and initially used in 1947 to house the museum library, until it was later added to and converted into a residential building.
Farmhouse
The farmhouse dates back to the mid-19th century and was used by Clara Sears to raise Guernsey cattle and for dairy farming . The two and a half storeys high house was built in the Italianate style and has several extensions.
Shaker Museum
Today's Shaker Museum was moved to the museum grounds in 1916 after Clara Sears had acquired it from the Harvard religious community, whose membership was declining at the time. Originally erected in 1794, the structure was the oldest in the Shaker community and previously stood in what is now the Harvard Shaker Village Historic District . It is one and a half stories high and has a gable roof with dormer windows covered with wooden shingles.
Indian Museum
The American Indian Museum was built in two phases, 1929 and 1932, by integrating two older buildings and connecting them to one another via a connecting wing. The two structures each have a gable roof with slate and are one and a half stories high. The oldest structure previously served as a school building in the Village Still River, while the younger was originally used as a barn. The outer walls are made of masonry bricks , partly taken from the former town hall in Lancaster, Massachusetts . The museum houses, among other things, a diorama about the liberation of Mary Rowlandson in May 1676 as well as a large number of other exhibits on the Native American culture of North America.
Prospect House
As the museum grew in importance, the Prospect House , which opened on Memorial Day 1935, was designed as an office and service building. This structure was also combined from two other buildings that had previously been moved to the museum grounds, so that it now has an H-shaped floor plan. In 1962 it was extensively renovated and today contains, among other things, the museum library.
Picture gallery
The picture gallery was added to the complex as the last museum building and was built in two construction phases in 1941 and 1947. It consists of two interconnected parts, each with a pyramid roof covered with slate. The Gallery contains Clara Sears' collection of folk art - portraits and paintings from her time as a member of the Hudson River School .
Visitor center
The Miriam Shaw Reception Center was relocated to the museum grounds in 1973 as the last building to date and named after Clara Sears' niece and serves as a visitor center .
Historical meaning
The Fruitlands Museums Historic District essentially consists of several museums put together by Clara Endicott Sears on a good 53 hectare area that formed the property of her estate The Pergolas during her lifetime . Starting with the Fruitlands Museum, three other museums followed: the Shaker Museum, the Indian Museum and the picture gallery.
The buildings within the museum grounds are architecturally interesting both individually and collectively and include two traditional houses with centered chimneys, a house and barn complex from the mid-19th century, an early Shaker office building, two small museum buildings, and a restaurant , Offices and a library building as well as an early 20th century cottage and garage. She bought some buildings in order to expand her property, others she acquired in more remote locations and had them moved to her property, and still others were completely rebuilt for museum purposes. This approach led to the preservation of buildings that would otherwise have been lost.
The museums were set up by Clara Sears between 1910 and 1947. She was one of New England's first women conservationists and one of the first to put together a personal collection of buildings and artifacts and make them available to the public. The museums that still exist today demonstrate the quality and innovation of their services and represent an important early step in the development of the research facilities that are open-air museums today. The centerpiece of the museum, Fruitlands , was recognized as a Massachusetts Historic Landmark in 1966 and a National Historic Landmark in 1974.
See also
literature
- Claire W. Dempsey, Betsy Friedberg: National Register of Historic Places Registration Form. (PDF) United States Department of the Interior , National Park Service , March 1997, accessed on September 13, 2017 (English, accessible via the "NR" button).
Web links
- Fruitlands Museum on the United States Geological Survey's Geographic Names Information System
- Official website