Breezy Corners, Lenox, Mass

Looking north on Cliffwood Street toward Greenwood Street in Lenox, with the Breezy Corners house on the right, around 1905-1915. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

795_1905-1915 loc

The street in 2015:

795_2015
As mentioned in previous posts, Lenox was a popular summer resort in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the house on the right side of the road was one of many summer “cottages” in the area. It was built around 1860, and in 1882 it was sold to Emily Meigs Biddle, a member of the prominent Biddle family in Philadelphia. She and her three adult children spent many summers here, and after Emily’s death in 1905, her youngest daughter, Emily Williams Biddle, inherited the property and kept it until she died in 1931. Over the nearly 50 years that the Biddle family owned the house, they made a number of additions to the original structure, including a third floor, a tower, and a larger servant area. Only part of the house is visible from this angle, but there are not many differences in these two views. There have not been any dramatic changes since the first photo was taken, and the historic home is still standing at the corner of Cliffwood and Greenwood Street.

Spring Lawn, Lenox, Mass

The Spring Lawn estate on Kemble Street in Lenox, around 1910-1920. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

791_1910-1920 loc

The building in 2015:

791_2015
Spring Lawn was one of many summer “cottages” built in the Berkshires in the late 1800s and early 1900s, when towns like Lenox were popular resorts for the wealthy during the Gilded Age. This mansion was built in 1904, replacing The Hive, which had been the home of Charles and Elizabeth Sedgwick and the site of Elizabeth’s prestigious school for girls. Her students included Ellen Emerson, the daughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson; Mary Abigal Fillmore, the daughter of president Millard Fillmore; and Jennie Jerome, the mother of Winston Churchill.

The school closed after Elizabeth Sedgwick’s death in 1864, and the property changed hands several times before being purchased by New York businessman John E. Alexandre, who demolished the old house and built Spring Lawn, as seen here. It was one of the first buildings designed by noted architect Guy Lowell, who later went on to design the New York State Supreme Court Building, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Charles River Dam in Boston.

Alexandre didn’t have much time to enjoy his new house, though. He died here in 1910, and it was sold to another prominent New York City resident, Mrs. Arthur F. Schermerhorn, who renamed it “Schermeer.” The house was later owned by the Lenox School for Boys and Bible Speaks College, and it has since gone through a number of other owners. As of the 2015 photo, the house is vacant, but in 2013 the owners announced a plan to restore the historic home as part of a proposed 14-building resort on the property.

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Fenway Court, which later became the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, around 1904. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

777_1904c loc

The museum in 2015:

777_2015
In the late 1800s, Boston resident Isabella Stewart Gardner began acquiring a substantial art collection. Her husband, Jack Gardner, was a wealthy merchant, and the two began planning a museum to house their rapidly growing collection. He died in 1898, before any real work could be done, but Isabella soon began creating the museum, which she had built in the city’s Fenway neighborhood.  At the time, this area was recently-filled marshland with very little development, and the museum would be the first building in this section of Fenway.

By 1900, the construction was underway, with Willard T. Sears as the architect.  Sears’s most notable work was probably the New Old South Church, although architecturally speaking the museum probably could not have been more different.  While the church is an excellent example of Gothic Revival architecture, the museum was built in the style of a Venetian palace, with a red tile roof, tan brick walls, and a glass-enclosed courtyard in the center of the building.

The museum, which was originally named Fenway Court, opened in 1903, probably not long before the first photo was taken.  Isabella Stewart Gardner died in 1924, and the museum was subsequently named for her.  In her will, she left a $1 million endowment to the museum, along with instructions on how the museum was to be run.  These included significant stipulations about the collection not being substantially altered, but in keeping with her somewhat eccentric personality it also included items such as free admission for anyone named Isabella and discounted admission for anyone wearing Red Sox attire (to this day, Red Sox paraphernalia entitles visitors to a $2 discount off admission).

Today, the Gardner Museum is less than a quarter mile away from the much larger Museum of Fine Arts, which relocated there in 1909, only six years after the Gardner Museum opened.  Both museums have significant collections of prominent works, but but unfortunately the Gardner Museum is perhaps best known for what it doesn’t have in its collection.  In 1990, the museum was the scene of the most expensive art theft in history, when two men entered the building disguised as Boston police officers and stole 13 works, including The Concert by Vermeet and The Storm on the Sea of Galilee by Rembrandt, along with other works by Rembrandt, Degas, Manet, and Flinck.  Together, the stolen items had an estimated value of $500 million, and despite over 25 years of investigation and a $5 million reward, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have been unable to recover the paintings.

Aside from the stolen paintings, though, the most significant change to the museum has been the addition of a new wing, which was completed in 2012.  It is barely visible on the far left beyond the trees, about 50 feet west of the original building, and it was intentionally designed to expand the size of the museum while at the same time preserving its historical integrity.  Otherwise, not much has changed between the two photos, except for the giant inflatable medallion hanging from the chimneys at the front of the building.

Arthur D. Ellis House, Monson, Mass

The Arthur D. Ellis House on Green Street in Monson, probably around 1906-1920. Image courtesy of the Monson Free Library.

763_1890-1920c mfl

The scene in 2015:

763_2015
The house in the first photo was the home of Arthur D. Ellis, a prominent factory owner in Monson.  Arthur’s father Dwight W. Ellis opened a textile mill on Bliss Street in 1871, and six years later Arthur became a partner in the company.  He took over ownership after his father’s death in 1899, and this house was probably built sometime after 1906, as Ellis had a house burn down that year. In 1908, Ellis built a second factory for the company, just down the hill and across Main Street from here, within sight of the house.

Arthur died in 1916, and the house remained in the Ellis family until it burned in the 1930s.  Following the fire, the present house was completed in 1939.  Although it is very different architecturally from the original house, there are some features left.  As seen in the second photo, the retaining wall and granite posts are still there, and just outside of the camera frame to the right is the original carriage house, which matches the architectural style of the old house.

The under the leadership of Arthur’s son Dwight, the company continued to be successful, supplying cloth to several different foreign royal families and producing the upholstery for the White House’s cars.  However, the company entered into decline in the 1950s, and in 1961 Dwight committed suicide.  A year later, the company went out of business.

The old wooden mill that the first Dwight Ellis built in 1871 remained vacant until it was demolished in 2000, and Arthur’s brick mill has gone through several ownership changes but is still standing on Main Street.  Arthur’s grandson, also named Dwight, sold the house in 1962 to E. Russell Sprague, who served as the president of Tambrands, Inc. from 1976 to 1981, and as the company’s chairman from 1981 to 1987.  Today, the house is operated as the Lord Manor bed & breakfast.

Main Street, Monson, Mass

Looking north on Main Street from near State Street in Monson, around 1890-1910. Image courtesy of the Monson Free Library.

762_1890-1910c mfl

Main Street in 2015:

762_2015
This section of Main Street was once known as “Millionaires’ Mile,” and it featured a number of elegant 19th century homes that were owned by prominent factory owners and other businessmen in Monson.  In previous posts I highlighted two neighboring homes that belonged to the Norcross family and Cushman family, and this photo was taken just north of them, in front of Cushman Hall.

Many of the homes from the first photo are still standing today, despite over a century of change and a devastating tornado that passed directly through this scene in 2011.  The trees hide some of the houses in the first photo, but nearly all of them from the foreground to the crest of the hill are nearly identical Greek Revival homes that date back to around the 1840s.  This style was particularly popular in industrialized New England cities like Hartford, New Haven, and New Bedford, but it can also be seen here in Monson, where similar industrial growth was occurring on a smaller scale.

The two houses on the far left, which are painted white and yellow in the 2015 photo, are essentially identical, and they were both built in 1842.  The one on the left was the home of Rufus and Sarah Fay, and the yellow one to the right was the home of Charles and Mary Ann Merrick.  Aside from being family, though, the two men were also business partners; they owned a straw hat factory across the street, where the Monson Town Offices are today.  Together they, and later their children, ran Merrick & Fay for over 50 years, and the company was a major employer in the town.  Their sons sold the company in 1891, and the factory burned down in 1912, but their twin houses are still standing on Main Street.

Other wealthy 19th century residents of this section of Main Street included Edward Cushman, who lived in the house on the far right.  He left it to the town in his will, and today it is the Monson Senior Center.  Further up the hill, the Victorian mansion just to the left of center was the home of Cyrus W. Holmes, a factory owner who lived in the Victorian mansion seen on the hill just to the left of center.

In more than 100 years since the first photo was taken, Main Street has seen many changes.  A trolley line was added and later removed, the road was paved, automobiles replaced both the horse-drawn carriages and the trolleys, and the 1938 hurricane destroyed most of the elms that once lined both sides of the street.   The street is no longer filled with millionaire businessmen either, but their former homes help contribute to the character of downtown Monson and serve as a reminder of the town’s industrial history.

Joel Norcross House, Monson, Mass

The Joel Norcross House on Main Street in Monson, probably around 1900-1920. Image courtesy of the Monson Free Library.

761_1890-1920c mfl

The building in 2015:

761_2015
This house was built in the early 1830s, and aside from its architectural significance as an excellent example of Greek Revival style, it is also notable as the home of Joel Norcross, the maternal grandfather of poet Emily Dickinson.  The Norcross family was prominent in Monson’s early history; Joel’s father William built a large home and tavern on nearby Cushman Street in the late 18th century, and Joel himself became a successful farmer and merchant.  He married Betsey Fay in 1798, and the couple had nine children, including Emily Norcross, the mother of Emily Dickinson.

Betsey died in 1829, and at some point after that (one source says 1830, another says 1835) Joel had this house built.  He remarried in 1831 to Sarah Vaill, just a few weeks after Emily Dickinson’s birth.  Sarah became a grandmother figure to Emily, who undoubtedly visited them in this house during her childhood.  Joel died in 1846 and Sarah in 1854, and the house went to Joel’s son Alfred.  After Alfred’s death in 1888, his son Arthur D. Norcross inherited it.  Arthur attended Monson Academy, and in 1871 he was one of the 27 students in the first graduating class at the Massachusetts Agricultural College, which would later become UMass Amherst.  Like the three generations before him, he was a prominent Monson citizen, and he served on the water commission, the school committee, the board of selectmen, and a number of other town offices.  He also represented the town in the state House of Representatives from 1904 to 1906, and the state Senate in 1908 and 1909.

Arthur’s son, Arthur, Jr., was born in Monson 1895, probably in this house, but he spent most of his life in New York City, where he founded the Norcross Greeting Card Company in the 1920s.  He did, however, continue to play a role in the town, and in 1939 he established the Norcross Wildlife Sanctuary in Monson and the neighboring town of Wales.  When he died in 1969, he left much of his estate to the Norcross Wildlife Foundation for the continued operation of the sanctuary, which now consists of around 8,000 acres in Monson and Wales.

The old Norcross house, meanwhile, is still standing on Main Street, and it is one of the few surviving examples of a columned Greek Revival home in Monson.  A similar neighbor, which was probably built around the same time, was the Solomon F. Cushman, Jr. House, located just to the right of here.  It was demolished sometime in the mid 20th century, and it is now a shopping plaza.  As seen in the second photo, the Norcross House now has a jewelry store (on a personal note, I bought my wife’s engagement ring here), along with several other commercial tenants.  Thankfully, its exterior has been well-preserved, and despite the change in use, it still looks the same as it did during Emily Dickinson’s visits over 160 years ago.