HH Richardson Historic District of North Easton
| HH Richardson Historic District of North Easton | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| National Register of Historic Places | |||
| National Historic Landmark District | |||
.JPG) Oakes Ames Memorial Hall and Ames Free Library , 2007 |
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| location | Easton , Massachusetts , United States | ||
| Coordinates | 42 ° 4 ′ 12 " N , 71 ° 6 ′ 2" W | ||
| surface | 5.8 acres (2.3 ha ) | ||
| Built | 1877-1884 | ||
| architect | Henry Hobson Richardson , Frederick Law Olmsted | ||
| Architectural style | Richardsonian Romanesque | ||
| NRHP number | 87002598 | ||
| Data | |||
| The NRHP added | December 23, 1987 | ||
| As NHLD declared | December 23, 1987 | ||
The HH Richardson Historic District of North Easton is a 2.3 ha large area in the northern part of the city Easton in the state of Massachusetts of the United States . The Historic District named after the architect Henry Hobson Richardson is also recognized as a National Historic Landmark and consists of five buildings designed by him as well as a war memorial by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted .
As a contributing property, the HH Richardson Historic District of North Easton is itself part of the much larger North Easton Historic District with an area of 200 hectares .
description
The Ames family , which grew rich primarily through investments in railways, mines and the western territories , was led in the third generation by Frederick Lothrop "FL" Ames and Oakes Angier Ames , who owned much of the land in Boston and Cambridge . Richardson caught their attention with the building of Trinity Church in Boston . They commissioned him with Frederick Law Olmsted to design buildings and associated land in North Easton. All of the structures described below - with the exception of The Rockery - are registered as Contributing Property of the Historic District.
Ames Free Library (1877-1883)
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The library, which opened in 1883, was much more expensive than originally planned , with a total cost of over $ 80,000 (today about $ 2,103,000 or EUR 1,761,100). The building, made of brown granite, has an almost rectangular floor plan. Stanford White designed the fireplace in the reading room and Augustus Saint-Gaudens provided medallions depicting Oliver Ames II. In 1931 an extension was added to the building to house the children's library.
Old Colony Railroad Station (1881-1884)
The former stop of the Old Colony Railroad was commissioned after the previous planning work was completed in 1882 by FL Ames, who at the time had a seat on the board of directors of the railway company, and transferred to the company after completion. In 1969 the Ames family bought the building back from the New York Central Railroad for $ 15,000 (around $ 104,000 or EUR 87,400 today) and donated it to the Easton Historical Society , which converted it into a museum and continues to use it today.
Oakes Ames Memorial Hall (1879–1881)
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Next to the library is the Memorial Hall built by the children of Oakes Ames as a memorial to their father . The originally planned costs of around 32,000 dollars ended up being over 60,000 dollars (today approx. 1,545,000 dollars or 1,294,100 euros). Even after the building opened, Olmsted continued landscaping the area for four years.
The building, made of brown granite, has a rectangular floor plan of 29.5 m × 15.5 m. The original construction plans could not be implemented, however, because difficulties arose again and again during the construction phase, which made improvisations and short-term changes necessary.
The building, originally intended as a Town Hall , remained unused for a long time because the city continued to hold its meetings in the center of Easton. In the end, it had to be completely closed for fire protection reasons and could only be reopened in the 1950s after a new escape stair was installed and some renovations were made inside.
Ames Gate Lodge (1880-1881)
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FL Ames owned a private estate in North Easton called Langwater, which was completed in 1859 and added on in 1876. The northern part of the property, however, was still vacant, so Richardson, Olmsted and Ames began developing plans for it in 1879. The lodge, which was completed in 1881, was supplemented from 1886 to 1887 by the landscape design developed by Olmsted and is still privately owned by the family to this day. In 2013, the building , which serves as the gateway to the north entrance to the property , was listed as a historic monument by Historic New England .
The elongated building was built from boulders and has a red hipped roof , which is broken through in some places by lens-shaped, flat dormers . Several rooms for storage and living are available on two floors.
FL Ames Gardener's Cottage (1884)
When the living space in the Gate Lodge was no longer sufficient for the gardener family, a private house with an almost square floor plan was built for them around 120 meters east of the lodge at construction costs of 3,562 dollars (today approx. 96,000 dollars or 80,100 euros) built. A second floor was added to the initially one-story building. The house is completely clad with wooden shingles.
The Rockery
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This war memorial for the Civil War , which is comparatively unusual in its design , was designed by the landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted . It is also known as the Memorial Cairn ( cairn monument ).
Olmsted's specifications called for the northern part of the triangular property to be designed as a small, likewise triangular lawn, separated from the rocky part by a short road (for “carriages coming from the east”) that ends at the foot of the memorial hall's stairs. The top of the rocky landscape should form a “rustic walkway and be laid out with seating and shade trees”, which at the eastern end widens to a circular space 9 meters in diameter around a flagpole.
The northern side should consist of rough field stones , "with a considerable incline so that its general appearance corresponds to the elevation of the area of the memorial hall". This design of the north flank had two main reasons: on the one hand, it visually connects the rocky landscape and the grounds of the memorial hall, and on the other hand, its similar appearance enhances the rough appearance of the hall's surroundings. The retaining wall should be a meter higher than the larger (and lower) terrace of the hall stairs so that it forms a parapet in front of it.
The Rockery is located within the HH Richardson Historic District of North Easton, but is a Contributing Property to the North Easton Historic District .
See also
- List of entries on the National Register of Historic Places in Bristol County
- List of National Historic Landmarks in Massachusetts
literature
- Carolyn Pitts: National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form. (PDF) National Park Service , United States Department of the Interior , accessed April 10, 2020 .
