From Surveys Completed 2011-2012 by the Lenox Historical Commission
ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION:
This Gothic Revival style building has two stories, an asphalt shingle roof and has been altered. It has a two-bay; wood frame; front gable roof; large brick center chimney; wood clapboard siding; front entry porch with steeply pitched gable roof with decorative trip in gable supported by four chamfered pillars; balcony above front porch with geometric railing; door surround with two-light transom; double entrance doors. It has a two-story box oriel on front facade (base tapers in from top to bottom). There is a large two-story rear ell with gable roof and interior brick chimney. There is a two-story rear lean-to at inside corner on right side of main house and rear ell. There is a two-story recessed, cross-gabled wing on the left side with shed-roofed porch on front, three turned.
Design is not Stick Style; details cited in original B form are common to both Gothic Revival & Queen Anne styles.
HISTORICAL NARRATIVE:
This house was built for Thomas Post, listed in the 1885 directory as lawyer, Justice of the Peace, Postmaster, telegraph operator and farmer. He was also a State Senator and “trusted counselor of all this region.”[1] He owned the entire lot up to Hubbard Street. He was in part responsible for the development of the Maple-Ash-Reynolds Street area, as he sold off his land in house lots in the 1890’s and early 20th century. Post, who had his law office in the Lenox Library (the second county courthouse), lived there until his death in 1913 when the property was inherited by his widow, Elizabeth.
After subsequent changes in ownership the building was sold to Timothy E. Blair in 1998. It is currently divided into six apartments.
BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES:
Lenox Assessor’s Report
County Atlas of Berkshire, Mass., F.W. Beers, 1876
Atlas of Berkshire County, Mass., Barnes and Farnham, 1904
Sanborn Maps: 1898, 1905, 1911
Gazetter of Berkshire County, Mass. 1727-1885, Hamilton Child, 1885
Lenox Assessor’s database 2012
[1] New England Magazine, “The Church on the Lenox Hilltop and Round About It,” Frederick Lynch, October 1900, vol. 23, p. 210
