Elm Street Look House.pdf
Follow Massachusetts Historical Commission Survey Manual instructions for completing this form. FORM B − BUILDING MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING
220MORRISSEY BOULEVARD BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Photograph Topographic or Assessor's Map Recorded by: Bonnie Parsons Organization: Pioneer Valley Planning Commission Date (month /year):
March, 2011 Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number 31B-247 Easthampton NTH.702 Town: Northampton Place: (neighborhood or village) Address: Elm Street at College Lane Historic
Name: Dwight B. Look House Uses: Present: Smith College offices Original: Single-family House Date of Construction: 1892 Source: Registry of Deeds 439.165; 1896 Atlas Style/Form: Queen
Anne Architect/Builder: Exterior Material: Foundation: brick Wall/Trim: clapboards, shingles Roof: asphalt Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: Major Alterations (with dates): Condition:
good Moved: no | x | yes | | Date Acreage: 1.125 acres Setting: This is a north-facing house that is set at the edge of the Smith College campus on a lot that slopes down to the south.
INVENTORY FORMB CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [Elm Street at College Lane ] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 1 NTH.702 ___ 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 Dwight Look House is a textbook example of the Free Classic version of the Queen Anne
style in that it adopts elements of classical architecture and substitutes them for the spindles, turned posts and jigsaw-cut ornament of the more common version of the Queen Anne style.
Here the house is two-and-a-half stories in height under a front-gable roof on which is centered centered a clustered chimney. The roof has a cross-gable on the east, a wing on the west,
and a two-and-a-half story ell on the south for a complex plan. The eaves of the north façade make full returns to form a pediment in the gable end. The pediment is stepped with a projecting
upper section above a lower section containing a classically-derived Palladian window composition. The pediment is shingle-sided. The first and second stories of the north façade are
three bays wide with a two-story, angled bay window projecting from the northeast corner, and a rectangular bay window projecting from the second story at the northwest corner and resting
on the hipped roof of a wraparound porch that crosses the north façade and ends on the west elevation at the wing. The position of the two bay windows on the north façade creates a recessed
center bay at the second story. At the first story the entry is composed of double leaf doors and a simple architrave surround. The porch is supported on classical columns and its stairs
are marked by a pediment on the porch roof. This pediment has ornamental panels suggesting half-timbering in its tympanum. The east and west elevations are as complex and the north façade.
On the west the eaves of the cross-gabled wing make full returns to create a pediment that is stepped as on the north. In the lower half is a band of three windows. At second story level
of the wing is a recessed corner porch that has a column post and a respondent pilaster adjacent to a rondel window. On the east elevation the cross-gable roof eaves again make full
returns for a stepped pediment. Beneath the pediment is a two-story angled bay window and recessed porches at first and second stories. The variety in designs of the elevations and façade
of this house create a sophisticated and picturesque composition. 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 the Form B of 1976, “This residence was built for Dwight B. Look on land purchased from Laura
Eager in early 1891. The house appears on the 1895 atlas. The Look House is now owned by Smith College but fronts on Elm Street and is part of the nineteenth century residential development
of the street.” Smith College bought the house in 1920. BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES Registry of Deeds Hampshire County, 439.165 1895 Atlas of Northampton, Forbes Library