From Surveys Completed 2011-2012 by the Lenox Historical Commission
ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION:
This is a 2-story, wood-framed house with wood clapboard and shingle siding prominently sited atop a hillock. It displays characteristics of both the Shingle and Queen Anne architectural styles. It has an asymmetrical arrangement of the front facade and irregular footprint. The roof is cross-gabled, clad with asphalt shingles, and features a number of dormers. A small dentil band on the cornice encircles the house. There are four massive brick chimneystacks (having multiple flues). There are a variety of shingles—the front gables have scalloped shingles with incised circles; the right side gable has sawtooth and tongue shingles alternating every row; and the second floor has rows of notched shingles over regular rectangular cut shingles. Scroll sawn brackets support all the projecting gables. Two projecting front gabled bays dominate the front facade. The larger of the two is on the right. It has a projecting gabled roof with a set off three attic windows, a broken pediment spanning all three. (This attic window arrangement is repeated on the right side of the house.) A canted bay window on the second floor is centered below, and below it is a 1-story sunporch with balcony atop. The left side pavilion is similar, except with a single 6-o-6 attic window and second floor French door that gives out onto a balcony that tops a fairly recent 1-story addition to the front. (It obscures the original front entry). The entrance, which was moved to the left (north) side, has a porch with two plain pillars and two pilasters with spindled balustrade atop, finials at its corners. The current entry door surround has a fanlight and 2/3-length sidelights. There is a 1-story ell on the left side of the rear ell. In 1885 a large 2-story rear addition was constructed. Attic windows are generally 6-light barn sash type, though on the right side, it has been replaced with a screen. There are a number of original Queen Anne style windows (small square panes surrounding a larger pane) and others with multi-paned transoms.
A large wood-framed carriage barn is sited well behind the house to the east. It has a gable roof with dormers and a cross-gabled right side ell. A greenhouse is also set back from the house, north and west of the carriage barn. A newer front gabled 2-stall garage is located behind the house and south of it is an in-ground swimming pool and gable-roofed pool house. The rear side yard in which the pool and pool house are located is fenced. A curvilinear driveway off Yokun Avenue with its entrance to the north of the house ascends the hill to a wide drop-off area at the front entrance, continues behind the house to access the garage, with a branch eastward to access the carriage barn. There are many mature coniferous and deciduous trees throughout the property.
Architect Henry M. Seaver (3/6/1873 –
The Edward A. Jones Memorial Building was designed by Pittsfield architect Henry M. Seaver. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1897 and began his own architectural firm in 1901.[1] By 1903 he had entered into a partnership with George C. Harding that lasted until Harding’s death in 1921.[2] During that period the firm designed the YMCA Building in Pittsfield; the Chapel at Colgate University in central New York; the Museum of Natural History and Art in Pittsfield; the Colby Academy in New London, New Hampshire; and the Lenox Town Hall.[3] After Harding’s death in 1921, Seaver kept the office open through 1933, during which time he designed the Jones building at the House of Mercy. Other buildings for which he was responsible in this period include the R.J. Flick Residence; an addition to the Berkshire Life Building in Pittsfield; and an addition to the Pittsfield Boys Club Building. He was also an associate architect on the Pittsfield High School Building.[4]
Architect Charles Follen McKim FAIA (August 24, 1847 – September 14, 1909)
One of the most prominent American Beaux-Arts architects of the late 19th century. Along with Stanford White, he provided the architectural expertise as a member of the partnership McKim, Mead, and White.
McKim was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, and was named after Charles Follen, noted abolitionist and Unitarian minister. After graduating from Harvard, he studied architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris[1] before joining the office of Henry Hobson Richardson in 1870. McKim formed his own firm in partnership with engineer William Rutherford Mead, joined in 1877 by fellow Richardson protégé Stanford White.
For ten years, the firm was primarily known for their open-plan informal summer houses. McKim became best known, however, as an exponent of Beaux-Arts architecture in styles that exemplified the American Renaissance, exemplified by the Boston Public Library (1887), and several works in New York City: the Morningside Heights campus of Columbia University (1893), the University Club of New York (1899), the Pierpont Morgan Library (1903), New York Penn Station (1904–10), and The Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio (1919). He designed the Howard Mansion (1896) at Hyde Park, New York.[2]
McKim, with the aid of Richard Morris Hunt, was instrumental in the formation of the American School of Architecture in Rome in 1894, which has become the American Academy in Rome, and designed the main campus buildings with his firm McKim, Mead, and White.
McKim received numerous awards during his lifetime, including the Medaille d’Or at the 1900 Paris Exposition, a gold medal from Edward VII of the United Kingdom,[3][4] and honorary doctorates from the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University. He was elected a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 1877, and received the AIA Gold Medal, posthumously, in 1909.
- Craven, Wayne (2009). Gilded mansions: grand architecture and high society. W. W. Norton & Co. p. 228.
- “National Register Information System”. National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2009-03-13.
- “KING EDWARD HONORS CHARLES F. McKIM”. NY Times. June 9, 1903.
- Moore, Charles (1929). The Life and Times of Charles Follen McKim. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. pp. 204-241. The royal gold medal was awarded for the restoration of the White House. In 1902 Congress appropriated $475,445 for this purpose to be spent at the discretion of President Theodore Roosevelt.
HISTORICAL NARRATIVE:
This house was built for Miss Mary DePeyster Carey. In 1917, it was sold to Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Strong and in 1931 to Miss Anna R. Alexandre, daughter of John Alexandre builder of Spring Lawn. In 1994 Miss Alexandre sold the house to Dr. and Mrs. Milos Krofta. In 2004 it was acquired by Barbara Crosby.
BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES:
Valuation of the Property, Lenox Library
Wood David, Lenox: Shire Town, P193.
Book of Berkshire P144
Lenox Assessor’s database
[1] Berkshire Athenaeum/Pittsfield Library, History Department, Architects file.
[2] Henry F. Withey, AIA and Elsie Rathburn Withey, Biographical Dictionary of American Architects (Deceased)(Los Angeles: Hennessey & Ingalls, Inc., 1970) p 264.
[3] Massachusetts Cultural Resource Inventory System (MACRIS) online at: <http://mhc-macris.net>
[4] Berkshire Athenaeum/Pittsfield Library, History Department, Architects file.
