Information from Surveys Completed 2011-2012 by the Lenox Historical Commission

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION:

This building has two stories, an asphalt roof and has been altered. It is a wood frame, shed roof with wood clapboard siding, a sliding hay door intact, full front porch and square posts & angled braces.

HISTORICAL NARRATIVE:

1893 Sanborn Map depicts 2-story bldg labeled “Bl. Sm. [Black Smith] & Wagon Shop;” “Carriage Repair & Bl. Sm.[Black Smith]” on 1911 Sanborn Map.

See Form No. LEN.65 (67 Church Street) for additional Architectural Description and Historical Narrative information.

BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES:

 

1893 Sanborn Map, 1911 Sanborn Map

Lenox Assessor’s database 2012

From Surveys Completed 2011-2012 by the Lenox Historical Commission

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION:

This Gothic Vernacular style building has two stories, an asphalt shingle roof and has been altered. It is a 3-bay center passage, wood frame building with wood clapboard siding. Some 2-over-2 windows are still intact on the 2nd floor rear ell.

Not depicted on 1854 Clark Map; 1st depicted on 1876 Beers Map (without rear ell); 1893 Sanborn Map depicts the large rear ell.

This is a typical example of an “I-house”, a two-story version of the basic hall-and-parlor house plan built throughout the nineteenth century. These houses, which started off two rooms wide and one room deep with a central entrance hall, were usually expanded by the addition of a rear wing, as this one was, and by a front porch (in this case the original 19^th century porch has been removed). A house of this style could have been built at almost any time in the nineteenth century. The 2/2 sash windows suggest a date after mid-century, or that the windows have been replaced.

Vernacular houses of this type must have once been plentiful in Lenox, but few have survived to the present. The blacksmith shop located in the large barn at the rear of the house makes this a particularly interesting property.

HISTORICAL NARRATIVE:

This house stands on land that was originally part if the Whitlock Farm, which was sold off in building lots in the early nineteenth century. A house was built on this site between 1813 and 1823, and may have been the residence of Levi Glezen, principal of Lenox Academy. The property was owned by Charles Sedgwick from 1836 until 1862, during which time the original house was altered, or else demolished and a new house built. In 1862 the house was purchased by the Lenox Iron Works, which at the time owned much of the property between Church and Main Streets.

In 1872 the house was sold again, this time to Lloyd H. Cloyd, who built a large barn in back of the house and started a blacksmith business on the premises. This barn was renovated along with the house in 1979. It used to house a blacksmith museum, which featured tools and items found in the barn along with a hand-operated elevator built in the early 1900‘s to move carriages from one floor to another.

• Before 1769    land owned by Elizar Dickinson (7,139)
•  1769    John Whitlock – part of Whitcomb Farm willed to son John Whitlock
•   1809    Peter VanDerburg 150 acres for $4,000.00 (47,77)
•   1813    Levi Glezen     (52,410) Built house
•   1815    Elizah Northrop (56,328)
•   1818    Levi Grezen was 1^st principal of Lenox Academy
•   1823    Chester Burrows (first mention of house in deed)
•    1826    John B. Perry
•    1829    Lemuel Parsons
•    1829    Edward Burrall
•    1836    Charles Sedgwick
•     1838    John Goodrich 91,563
•     1838    George Tucker Attorney-at-Law
•     1862    Lenox Iron Works
•  Leland & Selma Shepardson Town Constable
• Lloyd H. Cloyd Start of the Blacksmith business
• Joseph Regnier
• Joseph Eugene Tamagne
• Lenox Savings Bank
• Joseph Johnson willed to John Johnson (The Johnsons were in the plumbing business)
• Charles Flint and Laura Bergan developed businesses in both barn and house. Barn restored.

BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES:

1854 Clark Map, 1876 Beers Map, 1893 Sanborn Map

Registry of Deeds, Pittsfield, Mass.

County Atlas of Berkshire, Mass., F.W. Beers, 1876

Old Maps

Town records

Lenox Assessor’s database 2012

From Surveys Completed 2011-2012 by the Lenox Historical Commission

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION:

The original form of this vernacular house has been largely obscured by its annexation to its neighbor at 69 Church St.

This Gothic Vernacular style wood frame building has 1.5 – 2 stories, an asphalt shingle roof and has been altered. It has corner boards and wood clapboard siding.

LEFT SECTION: Upright & wing form with 1.5-story cross-gable wing with a shed-roofed broken-eave dormer. It has an entrance porch with gable roof, an arched ceiling, and slender Doric columns. There is a box bay window to right of entry and a glazed porch with hipped roof in left front corner forward of recessed left side ell. It has 2-over-2 windows and a brick center chimney.

RIGHT SECTION: Is a 2-story building with gable roof and 2 brick interior chimneys. There is a 2-story faceted bay window at right front corner (added between 1898 & 1905) with projecting front gable roof, pent between attic & 2nd floor. There is a 1-story hipped roof addition on front with entry porches on either end, with large storefront display windows between.

Posted as #63-65 Church St.; both houses appear to be depicted on 1854 Clark Map; Queen Anne details may have come with late 20th century additions, repeating roof pitches & details of earlier periods.

HISTORICAL NARRATIVE:

65 Church – Private home of Joseph & Desire W. Palmer who were large land owners in Lenox in the first third of the 19^th century. This house helped to fill in Church St.

Property was purchased by the Oaks Hunt Group LLC in 1987, the Church Street Café Realty in 1997 and then by Church Street Holdings LLC in 2007.

69 Church – The early owners of this building have contributed to the commerce of Lenox since the 3^rd quarter of the 19^th century. Most significant is the fact that a portion of the building moved in 1863 belonged to the Lenox Iron Works and originally the property was owned by the Lenox Iron Works.

This property was used as the home and carpentry show of the original owner, James McDonald. Later it was run as a boarding house by Caroline Bliss. It escaped damage in the 1909 Easter fire which destroyed many of the adjacent buildings. The property remained in the Bliss family until 1954. Property was purchased by the Oaks Hunt Group LLC in 1987, the Church Street Café Realty in 1997 and then by Church Street Holdings LLC in 2007.

The chain of title is as follows with deed Book/Page locations:

1862    Lenox Iron Works – George Tucker 165/570

1863   James McDonald 177/1

1. L. Waterman

1867    George Loomis 190/405

1871    Sam Washburn 209/195

1874    Caroline Goodell Bliss   222/353

Sam Washburn 218/495

1881    Frederick Washburn 218/496 (willed)

1891    Caroline Bliss 218/496

1894    Lenox Savings Bank 280/615-637

Caroline F. Bliss Probate 34/500

1923    Caroline F. Reicharet (2 parcels) willed by Grandmother Bliss

1954    Joseph & Eleanor Sonsini 610/207

1963    Stanley F. Wright 761/143

1976    Reinholt Ass. 976/25

1978    Robert & Suzanne Hatch 1006/476

1980    Vernon Rice

BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES:

1854 Clark Map

County Atlas of Berkshire F.W. Beers, 1876

Sanborn Insurance Maps: 1893, 1905, 1911, 1932

Middle Berkshire Registry of Deeds (Books/Pages as above)

Probate Court

Pittsfield-Lenox Directory 1909-1912

Berkshire Gazeteer 1725-1885

Additional Maps – 1900, 1904

Lenox Assessor’s database 2011