United States Department of the Interior

National Park Service

National Register of Historic Places

Section number 7

Architectural Description

Sunderland Center Historic District is an eight-street, mixed-residential and commercial district that includes a burial ground and a bridge spanning the Connecticut River. The district is located on an alluvial flood plain along the east shore of the Connecticut River; Mt. Toby and its foothills are visible on the east. The principal streetscape is a broad thoroughfare bordered by mature deciduous trees, one of which, a buttonball tree, has been recognized by the National Association of Arborists for being over two hundred years old. Houses are set deeply back from the street along Main Street and open, cultivated land extends on the west side of the street to the Connecticut River, and on the east into the plain that was the town's original wetlands. The district contains a well-preserved collection of large and moderately-scaled houses that date from ca. 1715 through the 1940s. The architecture displays a consistently high level of workmanship, design and materials.

This is a district whose architecture and cultivated land retain much of the appearance of their early 18th century foundations yet manage to reflect as well their consistent agricultural use and concomitant changes through the first half of the 20th century without loss to the setting, the feeling of the district or the associations it carries. The town's agricultural prosperity is reflected in the high level of workmanship found in its residential buildings, the number of its well-maintained agricultural outbuildings and commercial buildings, in the high-style public buildings that form its center.

A chronological description of the district's properties follows.

First Period 1675-1750

There are two houses in Sunderland Center that have been associated through oral tradition with First Period architecture. Both houses may contain significant elements from the First Period that would be revealed with an in-depth structural analysis. The first is the Isaac Graves House, 168 North Main Street, (MHC# 100) ca. 1715-30, according to tradition, and ca. 1750 according to its current exterior appearance (Photograph No. 2). The Graves House is a two-and-a-half story building with a large center chimney on its end-gable roof. The house has two features found in both the First Period and Georgian styles: the roof extends on its east facade to form a saltbox profile and there are gable overhangs on both north and south facades. The relatively larger proportions of the windows, their surrounds in high relief and the raised-panel door are features which suggest a date closer to mid-18th century, but may be the result of slight alterations over time, as well.

The Samuel Billings-Noah Graves House, 207 North Main Street, ca. 1718 and ca. 1780 (MHC# 96) is the second house with a potential for First Period elements. Historical accounts have suggested that a structure dating ca. 1718, a center chimney cottage was retained when the main block of the ca. 1780 building was constructed and added to it. Once again, a structural analysis might identify remaining structural members from the early 18th century building.

Riverside Cemetery, Cemetery Road, (MHC# 800) (Photograph No. 1) the core of which was laid out in 1714 in a long strip from the town way, belongs to this period and contains several markers that date between 1722 and 1759, five of which are those of original male Proprietors.

The early stones are rectangular, upright slabs of local red sandstone and slate with three-arched or triangular tops and are carved with soul effigies of simple, geometric forms in the rural, primitive style. The hand of one carver may be identified beginning with the 1743 Eunice Scott stone, a triple-arched sandstone marker with a soul effigy as its central motif. Here the soul effigy is distinguished by a pattern of hair spiraling out from the oval face from top to bottom of the head, in ever-widening, spring-like curls. Eyes are geometric ovals, the nose is a U-shaped loop and there is a slight mouth depicted. In the Connecticut River Valley the soul effigy motif appeared in the early 1700s and lasted through the 1750s and in Sunderland it persisted through the end of the 18th century. According to Kevin Sweeney of Amherst College, several dozen of these stones were carved by Ebenezer Soule, Sr. or Coomer Soule, a father and son team of itinerant carvers from Barre, Massachusetts. Among these stones are the 1743 Eunice Scott, 1759 William Scott, and going beyond the period slightly, the Martha Clark stone of 1761, 1767 Jeremiah Ballard stone and the stone of Elizabeth Scott of 1769.

Georgian Period 1750-1776

Residential

In addition to the Isaac Graves House and the Samuel Billing/Noah Graves House that may have First Period structural elements but have Georgian exterior features, there are four fine examples of the Georgian style in Sunderland Center. The David Graves House, 143 North Main Street, ca. 1748-1780, (MHC# 105) is two-and-a-half stories in height with and end-gable roof and central chimney. A gable-end overhang, second story windows close to the cornice and an entry wide enough to accommodate double-leaf paneled doors are its distinctive Georgian features.

The Benjamin Graves House, 1 Old Amherst Road, 1753 (MHC# 73) shares with the Isaac Graves House a saltbox elevation, its two-and-a-half story height and end-gable roof with large center chimney. Second story windows are placed close to the cornice level and both stories have chiefly 12/12 sash. At the cornice level is an articulated molding, a rich Georgian detail that is echoed in the trabeated door surround composed of wide, battered pilasters supporting a fully-defined pediment in high relief.

At 69 South Main Street, the Elisha Smith House, 1756, (MHC# 126) displays several of the period's features. Although it has lost its center chimney, the two-and-a-half story house has the gable-end overhang often found in the style, windows are placed close to the cornice on the second floor and the use of narrow clapboard exterior is a Georgian practice that may have been carried over in subsequent re-layings.

The Elias Graves House, 18 South Main Street, ca. 1765 (MHC# 139) is one of the largest Georgian houses. Two-and-a-half stories in height, it has a large center chimney on its steeply-pitched, end-gable roof. Windows are set close to the cornice on the second floor and all their surrounds project from the plane of the facade in Georgian fashion.

Transitional between the Georgian and subsequent Federal style is the Eleazer Warner House, 167 North Main Street, ca. 1750-1800 (MHC# 101). Although it has had several alterations in the form of additions, replacement windows, Greek Revival door surround, and vinyl siding, the main block of the house retains its transitional appearance. Two-and-a-half stories in height, it has an end-gable roof with two interior chimneys, an arrangement often used in the Federal style. However, it still displays the gable-end overhangs characteristic of the Georgian style. Windows are set close to the cornice on the second floor, a Georgian feature, but have been slightly enlarged in Federal style.

Barns and Outbuildings

It does not appear on brief survey that any of the Georgian period barns remains in Sunderland. However, there may be portions of a barn remaining from the period incorporated in a later structure. As framing members were reused frequently and configurations changed to adapt to new farming uses, the possibility remains that there are Georgian barns or portions of them yet to be identified.

Federal Period 1776-1820

Residential

The majority of the Federal style houses in the Center are large-scale, two-and-a-half story, end-gable houses, five bays wide and two to three bays deep. Most of them retained the conservative center chimney used during the Georgian period and most have either lost their original Federal-style door surrounds or have had them replaced by later versions. The most elaborated remaining door surround is found at the Catline-Trow House, 46 South Main Street, ca. 1800 (MHC# 130), thought to have been constructed by local wheelwright and innkeeper Nathan Catline. The surround is composed of an open pediment enclosing a fanlight and resting on narrow pilasters. Above the main entry on the second floor is a Palladian window composition, the only one of its kind in Sunderland. Vinyl siding obscures the cornerboards, window lintels and further detail.

One of the best-preserved Federal houses of this size is the Alexander-Taft House, 23 South Main Street, ca. 1800 (MHC# 137). Here the Federal style's larger window size, broader cornerboards and frieze made a clear contrast with earlier Georgian proportions and details. Although there have been alterations to the central door surround with addition of a pedimented Greek Revival frieze, the other elements of the trabeated surround, the narrow pilasters and 3/4 length sidelights, appear to be Federal in origin.

More stylistically conservative than the Alexander-Taft House are the Gideon Warner House, 157 North Main Street, ca. 1780 (MHC# 102) and the Eleazer Warner House, 167 North Main Street, ca. 1750-1800 (MHC# 101). Although both share the larger scale of the Federal period followed in Sunderland, windows here are smaller and placed close to the eaves in Georgian fashion. The Warner house also has retained the gable-end overhang found during the Georgian period.

The hipped roof that appeared in other towns rather often in the Federal period has one example in the Rev. James Taylor House, 133 North Main Street, ca. 1807 (MHC# 107). Stuccoed and otherwise altered during the Colonial Revival period, the house nevertheless shows its Federal origins with its proportions, nicely detailed cornice modillion blocks and two remaining interior chimneys, that may have been four in number at its time of construction.

Two modest Federal houses are found in the Israel Cooley House, 199 North Main Street, ca. 1800 (MHC# 97) (Photograph No. 4) and the Lota Rowe Root-Luther Root house, 87 South Main Street ca. 1817, (MHC# 118). Each is south-facing, one-and-a-half stories in height and has or had center chimneys. Each has its Federal style four or five light transom above a narrow entry. At the Root house, aluminum siding covers details including a door surround, but it is unique among Federal houses in Sunderland with its south roof extending to form a post- supported porch. The Cooley House is a very fine example of the evolution of a farmhouse complex. The main cape cod form house has been well-maintained and is distinguished both for its simplicity, and minimal number of alterations and is connected to its farm outbuildings in a right angle to create an extensive farmyard.

Almost utilitarian in its lack of detail is the Federal style toll house, 38 School Street, 1812, (MHC# 18) (Photograph No. 5). Built as part of a commercial venture creating the first Sunderland bridge as a toll bridge, the house was not intended to be too much more than serviceable. It does however, follow the two-and-a-half story, five-by-one bay form of its period with narrow windows placed close to the cornice and a now porch-obscured, narrow front entry. This house represents the more modest type of vernacular Federal buildings that were often lost because their successive owners were not affluent enough to maintain them adequately.

Commercial

The Sunderland Bank, 108 North Main Street, 1825, (MHC# 113) (Photograph No. 6) has been reasonably cited as a Greek Revival style building in the past for its front-gabled orientation, recessed entry and four colossal pilasters on its street facade. On closer inspection, however, the two-and-a-half story brick building might more properly be seen in a special class of late Federal buildings that displays the refinement of the classical revival style. This was a style practiced in England by the Adams brothers and circulated in the United States through carpenters's handbooks and constructed examples visited by traveling carpenters. The Adams brothers's work is characterized by a refinement of detail and attenuation of forms that was most prominently known in their delicately detailed interior work. Their influence, however, was spread through the handbooks and work of Asher Benjamin who was active in Franklin County and practiced by local carpenters such as Calvin Stearns in Northfield and by other less well-known carpenters in the region. One example is the South Amherst Congregational Church of 1824 that was built by George Nutting and Philip L. Goss based on a Greenwich, Massachusetts model (now gone). A residential version of the classical revival Adamesque style is found in Gill, at the Prentice Slate House, 313 Main Road, built by Lewis P. Platt, a local carpenter.

Greek Revival Period 1820-1850

Residential

By far the most well-represented style in Sunderland Center's residential architecture is the Greek Revival. Most of these houses are two-and-a-half stories in height and are divided evenly between those that are front-gabled and present a temple-like elevation to the street, or are end-gabled and retain the more traditional orientation. Examples of the former are the Elihu Smith-Charles Moline House, 50 South Main Street, 1847 (MHC# 129), the Seth Warner House, 63 South

Main Street, 1836 (MHC# 127) the Dr. Gustavus Peck House, 90 South Main Street, ca. 1835, (MHC# 117), the Third Parsonage, 79 South Main Street, 1842 (MHC# 122) and the Nathaniel Austin Smith House, 47 South Main Street, ca. 1847 (MHC# 131). Most extraordinary for its architectural detail among these is the Dr. Gustavus Peck house where cornerboards are pilasters and there is a proper frieze at the cornice, and a trabeated door surround that has paneled pilasters framing the opening and enclosing an arched fan. Anthemions ornament the pilasters and feathered scrollwork fills the angles of the arched fan. It is highly likely that the design was adapted from a Greek Revival carpenter's handbook, namely one by Minard LaFever. The Seth Warner House is distinguished by its brick construction, the only Greek Revival example in the Center. Four of these houses display a full-height, double-hung window in their gable fields, a local feature.

End-gabled, Greek Revival houses are found at the Henry O. Williams House, 243 North Main Street, ca. 1858, (MHC# 94) and the Horatio Graves House, 28 School Street, ca. 1855 (MHC# 15). Several houses take advantage of both orientations. That is, they present their gables to the street, but have their main entries on a lateral, often south-facing, facade. Two examples are the Ashley Graves House, 121 North Main Street, ca. 1830 (MHC# 110) (Photograph No. 7) and the Warren Graves House, 28 South Main Street, ca. 1834 (MHC# 138). The Graves House further embellished on the pattern by adding a fourth bay to the gabled street facade, incorporating a fully-developed Greek Revival style recessed entry, and on its south facade a column-supported portico. Unique in the Center is the Greek Revival William Russell House, 82 South Main Street, ca. 1830 (MHC# 121) (Photograph No. 8) that has a broad hipped roof.

One-and-a-half story Greek Revival houses on South Main Street follow the same variations in orientation as the taller buildings. The Clark Rowe House at 34 South Main Street c.1831, (MHC# 133) has clear eaves returns, its cornerboards are broad pilasters and at the cornice level is an ample frieze which frames the building in a temple-like manner. The second floor has knee-high windows that were meant to suggest temple attic openings. The door surround follows the same trabeated structure and has 3/4 length sidelights in slightly recessed openings.

The one-and-a-half story form could follow the end-gable elevation as well as the front-gable. One of the best examples is the Samuel Dorrance House, 86 South Main Street, c.1835, (MHC# 119), which kept its entrance on the south-facing, five bay facade. Now the Greek Revival features are completely developed with capitals on the pilaster-cornerboards, eaves returns and broad, filleted frieze.

Some buildings just got re-trimmed to look more up-to-date during the period. A good example is the Elias Graves House, 18 South Main Street, ca. 1765 (MHC# 139), a Georgian style house which got a new Greek Revival door surround about 1830. A second example is the Manoah Bodman House, 38 South Main Street, ca. 1758, (MHC# 135) (Photograph No. 9). Here the Georgian house retained its five-bay, center entrance facade, but its roof was raised, a new entry surround was added and its original chimney was reduced and shifted to accommodate a new heating system. The Deacon John Montague House, 59 South Main Street, is thought to have been constructed ca. 1800 but it was altered to Greek Revival ca. 1830, (MHC#128) and takes that stylistic designation. It represents the front-gabled version of the style and shares with the Clark Rowe House at 34 South Main Street c.1831, (MHC# 133) a well-developed level of architectural detail.

Institutional

Indicative of the town's civic attention to style is the Greek Revival style Town House at 104 North Main Street, c.1820-28, (MHC# 114) (Photograph No. 10). A small, one-and-a-half story building with a front-gabled roof, the former meeting hall meant to appear as a Greek temple with a colonnaded facade in antis made up of four paneled posts across its street facade. Small in scale, but larger in presence, the building has a secondary recessed entrance on its south facade which is as elaborate as many primary residential entrances in town.

One of the next institutional buildings to receive this civic attention was a new meeting house which was built in 1835 on the site of the second meeting house of 1794. The third building, its parishioners made improvements for their greater comfort which included a basement, wood stoves in the sanctuary and carpets which kept it warmer in winter.

But then the church needed a place to hold its Sunday School, and evening meetings. So the First Congregational Chapel, 93 South Main Street, (MHC# 115) was built in 1849 for $800. This is a single-story, Greek Revival style building with a front-gabled roof. The eaves make a full return on the street facade to form a flushboard pediment, the cornerboards are broad, paneled pilasters and a wide frieze encircles the building at the cornice level, ornamented with a dentil fillet.

Gothic Revival Period 1830-1850

Residential

The Gothic Revival style was nationally a rather ornate and picturesque style which aimed to place its buildings within the landscape rather than to showcase them on the landscape, as had been the objective of the Greek Revival style. Sunderland's builders using its vernacular forms, often met the style's picturesque requirements.

Over the decades, the features which often identified a building as Gothic Revival are the very ones which proved to be the most fragile: the barge boards, cresting rails, board and batten siding, the ornamental door and window surrounds. This is the case with most of the town's examples of the style. Characteristic of the style is the steeply pitched, front-gable roof with a wide overhang - and possibly missing barge boards - found at the W. D. Chandler House, 9 School Street, ca. 1865, (MHC# 10). An old photograph of the house shows its original porch on slender supports. The house has ogive-shaped dormer windows on its south ell and an attached carriage house which has a portion of its original board and batten siding remaining, both of which were Gothic Revival features.

Very well maintained is the Benjamin Darling House at 4 South Main Street, ca. 1851, (MHC# 142) constructed by Darling who was an active carpenter in Sunderland. Here the barge boards remain on the two-and-a-half story front gable and on a transverse gable wing. The Henry F. Sanderson House, 120 North Main Street, ca. 1843 (MHC# 109), although aluminum-sided, has retained much of its ornament including king post trusses in its front and transverse gables, and barge boards lining the raking eaves. Scroll-cut brackets on turned porch posts add further curvilinear detail to the picturesque whole.

The Austin Lysander Marsh house at 71 South Main Street, ca. 1835 (MHC# 125) is a curious blend of both Greek Revival and Gothic Revival styles. With its broad frieze and wide cornerboards the house has clear Greek Revival intentions further supported with a secondary end-gable entry on its street facade that acknowledges the Greek Revival temple antecedent. From the Gothic Revival style, however, is the house's steeply pitched roof.

Institutional

The First Congregational Church, 91 South Main Street, (MHC# 115) was completely refurbished in 1871. It was stripped of interior and exterior finishes down to its structural members, and rebuilt as a late example of the Gothic Revival style with pedimented surrounds, trilobe ornament at the windows, leaded glass and a stickwork trim on a clapboard exterior surface. All of the work is not currently visible as the exterior has been covered with vinyl siding which obscures its character significantly. Only on the tower can the stickwork clapboard surface still be seen and appreciated. On the interior, walls were plastered and painted, a new organ was added, and all new pews put in.

Italianate and French Second Empire 1840-1880

Residential

The Italianate style is well-represented by the George F. Abby House, 154 North Main Street, c.1875, (MHC# 103). A two-story house almost equally deep as it is wide, for a square plan, the house has a roof which is so shallowly hipped that it appears to be flat. The roof extends far beyond the plane of the facade and is supported by paired, scrolled brackets to suggest the appearance of an Italian villa. Windows at both first and second floors have capped lintels and the center door is preceded by a porch supported by slender, clustered porch posts.

A second fine example is the Deacon Albert Hobart House, 37 South Main Street, 1850-1860 (MHC# 136). This is a two-story house that has a nearly flat roof with wide eaves overhang meant to suggest an Italian villa. Paired, scroll-cut brackets at the eaves are characteristic of the style and between them are narrow attic windows in the frieze. Window lintels are capped on both stories. A small porch on Italianate, clustered posts shelters a center entrance.

During and after the Civil War, the French Second Empire style that is characterized by a mansard roof was extremely popular on the eastern seaboard and particularly in more urban areas. Sunderland has one excellent example of the style, built, not surprisingly, by a New Yorker. The Alvin Johnson House, 140 North Main Street c.1865, MHC# 106 is a two-and-a-half story brick version of the style which would be considered ornate even in a more urban setting. It has a slate- covered mansard roof punctuated by rondel dormers. The eaves line takes on semicircular and gable contours all of which are ornamented with scroll cut brackets. A long verandah supported by paired and clustered posts adds to the complex and sophisticated elevation of the building.

Institutional

In 1867 a new Italianate style town hall was built at 112 North Main Street, (MHC# 111). It is a brick, two-and-a-half story building with a front-gabled roof topped by an octagonal cupola. Its Italianate details are the prominent modillion blocks at the cornice and raking eaves; the triple window composition in the gable end, and originally its post-supported porch that has been removed and replaced by a Neo-colonial entry. Above all, the building's large proportions mark it as an Italianate institutional building. Only three bays wide and seven deep, the building's large scale accommodated multiple town functions including classrooms, offices and library.

Barns and Outbuildings

Tobacco barns were developed in the 1850s in the region and Sunderland built its share. Many of these older barns were destroyed in the flood and hurricanes of 1936 and 1938. When farmers rebuilt, they often used structural members which were still sound, so once again older barn parts may be incorporated in more recent barns.

Stick Style, Queen Anne and Colonial Revival 1880-1915

Residential

Between 1870 and 1915 the progression of architectural styles seen elsewhere in western Massachusetts was in Sunderland fairly reserved. Within the center, the styles, while not numerically strong, were nevertheless artistically strong.

The Stick Style arrived in Sunderland around 1865, was used for an important barn, which is discussed below, was draped around an existing Greek Revival house and then was without further influence. The William Russell House, 82 South Main Street, pre-1830, (MHC# 121) (Photograph No. 8) is the house in question. It is a hipped-roof, two-story building that is five bays wide and several bays deep. It has wide pilasters on the street facade, and a filleted frieze at the cornice which identify its Greek Revival origins. In a Stick Style retrimming, the frieze was made to project beyond the plane of the facade and a toothed and scallop trim was added above the pilaster capitals and below the eaves. Between first and second floors on the north and south facades, a paneled stickwork motif was applied. Windows were probably at that time extended to full length on the first floor.

The Queen Anne style had very limited impact on Sunderland Center. Rather, it appears in details such as porch posts, scroll-cut brackets and an occasional use of transverse gables and bays to increase the complexity of the volume of the building. One of the best examples of the style is the Lillian Dill House at 17 South Main Street, after 1884, (MHC# 140). Characteristic is its front-gabled elevation with a full width front porch on turned posts with scroll-cut brackets. Set on high brick foundations the house also has a two story bay on its south facade which adds to its picturesque quality.

The Colonial Revival style fared better than the Queen Anne in Sunderland. This style used motifs from the Georgian and Federal periods to recreate an American style from the past in a new form. One of the better examples of the style is the Ina Kidder-Frederick C. Kidder House, 83 South Main Street, 1914, (MHC# 120), the most elaborate of the town's Colonial Revival houses. It is a generous two-and-a-half stories in height with a row of three pedimented dormers across the roof of its street facade. The style's use of increased window size and of banks of windows are found here. The second floor windows are arranged into five bays with the center bay composed of paired rather than single windows and the first floor makes use of the full-bay sized, leaded glass transom windows. References to our colonial era architecture are close at hand. A Palladian window composition in the gable end of the house was directly quoted by the architect/designer from the Federal style Catline-Trow House, 46 South Main Street, c.1800, (MHC# 130) on the east side of the street. The columned side porch at the Kidder House is part of the Colonial Revival's interest in using classical features in a new manner.

In 1917 the Center's Fourth Parsonage was constructed at 115 North Main Street ( MHC# ). This house is a good example of the typical Colonial Revival house in which proportions have grown, windows enlarged to let more light to the interior and the plan simplified into a three-bay width for larger interior volumes, but ornament was kept to a minimum. Two stories high under a steeply hipped roof of slate, the house is three bays wide and is square in plan. Indicative of the growing importance of the automobile at the time is the inclusion of a slate-roofed garage designed to compliment the house.

The close association among contemporary styles can be appreciated at the Hepburn-Houle House, 41 South Main Street, 1922, (MHC# 132). Here the Colonial Revival four-square follows the style's preference for the hipped roof, and pedimented porch resting on Doric columns, but pulls into the equation a two story bay from the Queen Anne style and n Craftsman style exterior brick chimney lacing through the roof line. The house has a stately, if slightly eclectic, presence on the street.

Many of the same ingredients, but at a reduced scale, may be found at the Frederick E. Walsh House, 6 School Street, 1921, (MHC# 9). Here the truncated hip roof has a centered, hipped dormer, but the house is only two bays wide and has a much more modest porch on Doric columns.

One early Tudor Revival house was built during this period as well, the architect-designed, Arthur W. Hubbard House, 76 South Main Street, ca.1910, (MHC# ). The architect, Karl Scott Putnam, was active in the Connecticut River Valley from his position as a professor of architecture at Smith College where his papers are now kept. An architectural historian as well as architect, who taught the history of architecture, Putnam was extremely proficient in the revival styles of the period and that is evident here at the Hubbard House where the L-shaped plan is unified with a pergola-style porch on a cobblestone base. The stucco exterior is given variety and visual interest with variations to the plane of the facades. Half-timbering in the gable fields, banks of windows and a segmentally arched window further characterize the Tudor Revival style.

Commercial

John and Vine Lawer's Blacksmith Shop, 23 School Street, c.1880, (MHC# 14), represents the last of the small scale commercial/light industrial buildings which epitomized Sunderland's late 19th-early 20th century utilitarian architecture. What defines it is the adaptation of residential or farm outbuilding architecture to commercial use. The building has a front gable roof, is three bays wide and eight bays deep and uses the residential 6/6 sash, flat stock window and door surrounds, and clapboard exterior of residential architecture.

Barns and Outbuildings

There are rather a large number of barns in Sunderland which date between 1870 and 1915. Tobacco barns, hay and livestock barns, vegetable storage barns, horse barns and carriage houses are among them. Large scale barns have survived in greater numbers than small scale sheds. Description of a few of the more outstanding follow.

At 199 North Main Street, the Israel Cooley House, (MHC# 97) (Photograph No. 4) has a side-aisle livestock barn which represents the type well. It was sited perpendicular to the house to create a side yard where farm activities could be centrally located. The New England style barn, with its entrance in the gable end, is one-and-a-half stories in height and has a rondel window in the gable field.

On Warner Drive and behind the building at 108 Main Street (see Photograph No. 6) is a hay and horse barn that has been converted to storage use but retains its roof cupola, vertical siding and lunette window in its gable field. The barn has a date painted on it of 1886.

At the Rev. James Taylor House, 133 North Main Street, ca. 1807 (MHC# 107) is a pressed concrete block dairy barn that dates ca. 1910 with a slate-covered gambrel roof. Eight to ten bays long and four bays deep, the barn was probably built by veterinarian and Massachusetts Agricultural College graduate, Dr. Milton Williams, who applied his theory and experience to the design of this farm building.

Institutional

The Graves Memorial Library, 109 North Main Street, 1900, (MHC#112) (Photograph No. 11) is Sunderland's finest institutional building of this period. Designed by the Allen Brothers architectural firm of Amherst, the library is Tudor Revival in style, and brick in construction. Designed to take advantage of its corner lot with an L-shaped plan and corner entrance portico, the library is one-and-a-half stories in height, but achieves greater apparent height by being set on a high basement marked by a limestone watertable. Specifically Tudor Revival design features are the use of the gabled parapet walls with toothed limestone caps and the fine window composition of the east facade that is topped by an eared architrave surround.

The second prominent institutional building of the period is the Center School, 12 School Street, 1922, (MHC# 12) by architect Karl Scott Putnam who also designed the Arthur W. Hubbard House, 76 South Main Street, c.1910, (MHC#123). The Center School is a brick Federal Revival style building which makes use of Federal period motifs such as keystones at the splayed window lintels, and a Palladian window composition to suggest a civic/institutional architecture of stability and dignity. This building style was common for schools across the country but was appropriate in Sunderland Center where brick had been used for some of the town's most important buildings such as the Town Hall, Library, and Sunderland Bank.

Craftsman Style 1915-1930

Residential

The Craftsman style takes the bungalow form in Sunderland, and there are several fine bungalows in the district. The Kenneth Williams House, 127 North Main Street, c.1920, (MHC# 108) is a well-maintained version. Rather than the more classical bungalow form that extends one side of an end-gable roof to create a deep porch, the Williams house has a pyramidal hipped roof that dictates a square plan and creates the porch by recessing the front facade. The porch is post supported on a shingled knee-wall and the posts are battered. The street facade is three bays wide with a center entrance flanked by a single window on one side and a bank of three windows on the other. Characteristic of the style's interest in designs that avoided the mass-produced and pretentious look of so much prior architecture, the house is built low to the ground and is sided with shingles that have a hand-crafted look that is further developed in the exposed purlins and rafter ends at the eaves and by the exterior chimney that is laced through the eaves next to a shed roof dormer. A second fine example that is thematically more developed within the Craftsman style is the Clifford A. Hubbard House, 12 South Main Street, 1919, ( MHC# 141). Built by Hubbard, this is a Craftsman style bungalow with Egyptian Revival overtones found in its battered porch supports and porch knee walls, in its pedimented window and entry surrounds. It strays further from the classical bungalow form than the Williams House by the addition of a transverse gable on the street facade and a smaller one on the north. The wide roof overhang, deep porch and emphasis on the horizontal make it, in good Craftsman fashion however, blend with the landscape rather than perch on it.

Commercial

The Millstone Farm Market, 24 South Main Street, 1929, (MHC# 134) is a fanciful example of commercial architecture designed to attract the automobile-driving public. Here the builder used an uncommon material, random fieldstone, inlaid with old mill stones, to catch the eye of passers by and bring them to stop at his roadside vegetable stand. This is a one-story building with a shallow hipped roof. There is a frame extension at the rear of the building and an open, frame stand on its north west corner. The cornice line of the fieldstone market has been laid with an ornamental parapet of upright stones for a highly unconventional profile. The main block is three bays wide with a center entry flanked by two openings that have been filled in beneath their stone lintels. Three large millstones are set into the masonry, one at each side of the door and one rising above the cornice line over the door.

The Warner-Miller Garage/Skibiski Farm Implement Building, 18 Amherst Road, 1917 (MHC# 20) is a single-story commercial building that has a partially hipped roof with a false, stepped-parapet street facade. As a commercial garage, it was given the parapet wall facade to make it more imposing and attractive to motorists than would have been a simple garage building. This was a technique that was shared with the Millstone Farm Market.

The Warner Store, 10-10A Amherst Road, 1917, (MHC# 19) is a second commercial building constructed in 1917 by the same family. It was pragmatically designed in two parts, one of which is connected by a thin partition to the building at 18 Amherst Road, to provide two long, sheltered loading docks for the coal, grain and farm equipment that were traded from the building. The two sections of the building are clapboard and novelty sided, as was the garage next door and together they made a unified grouping.

The Warner's Tobacco Shop, 110 North Main Street, 1923 (MHC# 21) (Photograph No. 12) is a utilitarian, clapboard-sided building whose form was largely based on its production requirements. The front-gabled building is one-and-a-half stories in height, set on a high brick basement. Double leaf entry doors centered on the main packing/production floor open on the south and the building is lit by conservative, 6/6 sash. As the stripping process needed to take place in a cool, moist, but well-lit space, the brick basement is high and illuminated by a row of 6-light, fixed-sash windows.

Barns and Outbuildings

Throughout the town there are barns, garages and outbuildings dating from the early to mid-20th century Typical of the multi-use vegetable storage building is the onion storage building at 32 School Street c.1924, (MHC# 16), which was used by a local farming family for bagging vegetables. Identifiable by its small window openings for ventilation, the building is one and a half stories in height, has a metal roof, and has a loading dock across a portion of its novelty-sided exterior.

With the vast popularity of the automobile, garages were built in large numbers. When they were constructed around or about the same time as the main house, they were sometimes designed in a similar style. Such was the case of the front-gabled garage at 33 School Street, ca. 1920-30 with its clapboard siding.

Neo-colonial Style 1920-1950

Residential

As the 20th century revival styles progressed, architects and designers of the Colonial Revival incorporated design elements from a wider range of colonial past and the Neo-colonial style evolved, one that was less academic in its references to the past. For instance, interpretations of the Dutch Georgian and Federal houses of New York were repeated in considerably modified form across the country through the Neo-colonial style. The Williams Farm, 225 North Main Street, 1919, (MHC# 95) makes use of this precedent with its kick eaves and gambrel roof. A pergola-style porch on the south is a Craftsman style motif.

More typical of the post-war scale of building in the Neo-colonial style are the Ben Toczydlowki House, 23 Bridge Street, 1947 (MHC# ) and next door to it the Edward Tozloski House, 17 Bridge Street, 1948, (MHC# ). Both are end-gable, one-and-a-half story houses that follow the colonial cape form in compact fashion. At a time when the need for housing was great, the economical Neo-colonial cape form was adapted in vast numbers and stock trim at doors and windows made construction efficient and relatively uniform. Other examples of the style are found at 238 North Main Street, ca.

1950 (MHC# ); the house at 200 North Main Street, ca. 1930 that has a similarly styled garage (MHC# ) or the house and garage at 158 North Main Street, ca. 1940 (MHC# ).

Commercial

The Skibiski Building, 2 Amherst Road, ca. 1927, (MHC# ) makes similar references to a colonial past, here picking up the end-gambrel roof for the one-and-a-half story Neo-colonial style building. Befitting its location, the vinyl-sided commercial building was designed on a residential scale elongated by a wing on the east to ocupy the full corner lot.

Ben's Station, 11 Bridge Street, 1939, (MHC# ) was more utilitarian as a service station and used a form that had come to be standard to identify its purpose: a single story in height beneath a flat roof with prominent signage to catch the eye of motorists.

Structure

Connecticut River Bridge, Bridge Street, 1938, (MHC# 901). This bridge is a six-span, deck truss bridge which is 1049 feet in length and 49 feet wide with its eastern end in Sunderland, its western end in South Deerfield. The steel span rests on five concrete piers which are faced with granite blocks on the upstream or north side. Abutments are also granite block faced. Four concrete uprights at each abutment on their upper levels are in an Art Deco style with stepped planes and polished metal ornament, and they are topped by elaborate polished copper light fixtures. The bridge has a steel railing at each side. Much the structure's beauty derives from the simplicity of its design, and from the comparative lightness of its slightly bowed deck resting on massive concrete piers.