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Kensington Avenue 62.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, 2010 Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number 31A-251 Easthampton NTH.559 Town: Northampton Place: (neighborhood or village) Address: 62 (64 officially) Kensington Avenue Historic Name: G. Gere House Uses: Present: Four-unit college residence Original: Two-family residence Date of Construction: 1890-1895 Source: Registry of Deeds & Atlas Style/Form: Queen Anne Architect/Builder: Exterior Material: Foundation: brick Wall/Trim: clapboards, shingles Roof: asphalt shingles Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: Garage Major Alterations (with dates): window replacements. Condition: good Moved: no | x | yes | | Date Acreage: 0.74 acres Setting: This house faces west and abuts Smith College’s Quadrangle on the east. INVENTORY FORMB CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [62 KENSINGTON AVENUE] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 1 NTH.559 _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 is one of two houses with the official city number 64 Kensington Avenue on the same block. The lot was reconfigured when it came into Smith College ownership. It was previously 62 Kensington Avenue. It is a two-and-a-half story Queen Anne style building with a side-gable roof and a three-story tower at its southwest corner. It shares with several of its neighboring houses houses several common architectural features such as the stacked porches with identical friezes, corner towers, entry location and fenestration on the first and second stories of the west tower of a large fixed-light window. This version, however, appears to have been expanded with two broad stories of porches that wrap from the west to the north elevation with bracketed eaves above a spindled frieze. A two-story bay window is located on the south elevation adjacent to a through-eaves, end-wall chimney. The house also has a two-and-a-half story ell on the east adding to its floor plan. The clapboard exterior has been ornamented with paneling beneath the windows. 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 1980: “In 1890, Kensington Avenue was opened through the Elm Street homestead of Aaron Breck. The street was developed by Charles Crouch, Northampton’s most prolific builder of the 19th century. Mr. Crouch built houses on contract or built houses for himself then leased out as tenements. This house appears on the 1895 atlas and was the property of Frederick Crouch, probably Charles’s son and a carpenter. By 1900, the property was owned and occupied by George S. Gere, co-owner of the Gazette Printing Company.” 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. Registry of Deeds: Bk. 442-P.131 INVENTORY FORMB CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON] [62 KENSINGTON AVENUE] MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 2 NTH.559 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 on the south side of 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.