The History of the Norcross Houses
Completed by 1878, the Norcross homes, built by two brothers, James A.
(1831-1903) and Orlando W. (1839-1920) Norcross, are arguably the earliest and
finest examples of Queen Anne style architecture in Worcester, Massachusetts.
The buildings are notable for their architectural style, interior
appointments, and historic associations.
The Norcross family originated in Maine and moved to Salem, Massachusetts
in 1843. After the Civil War, James
and Orlando established their own general contracting business on Cape Anne.
When the firm was engaged in 1868 to build the Worcester High School (now
obliterated), the Norcross brothers transferred their base to Worcester where it
remained for the rest of their careers. The
successful completion of the Worcester high School linked the Norcross brothers
into a profitable and nearly continuous association with the building’s
architect, H.H. Richardson, arguably the most influential architect of the late
nineteenth century.
They proceeded to craft most of Richardson’s major commissions, and
their firm became the construction giant of the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. Trinity Church
(Boston), the New York Public Library, Allegheny County Court House and Jail
(Pittsburgh), the Rhode Island State House, Symphony Hall (Boston), South
Station (Boston), St. John’s Episcopal Church (New York), Marshall Field’s
(Chicago), and a renovation of the White House are among their more notable
commissions. In Worcester, City
Hall, the Slater Building, the State Mutual Building (340 Main Street), the
Clark University Library (now the Jefferson Academic Center), and many others
bore the Norcross imprint. Noted
for their quality masonry craftsmanship, fiscal integrity, and organizational
innovation, James and Orlando Norcross made important contributions to the
architectural and commercial history of their era both independently and through
their association with H.H. Richardson and the Romanesque Revival style that
their masonry construction techniques helped to make possible.
The two homes at the corner of Claremont and Woodland Streets are near
mirror images of each other. Both
buildings are of rock-faced sandstone quarried in East Longmeadow, Mass.
Each building rises two-and-one-half stories to a dormered attic and
presents an asymmetrical façade to the world.
The main entry is in the center of the south façade, with a rounded,
dormered turret-bay on one side and an expanse of triple windows on the other.
A side entrance on each building abuts a single storey rounded bay that
extends the dining room. A carriage
house, originally positioned between the two houses and shared by the brothers,
has been removed. The only
significant exterior elements in which the two buildings differ are: (1) the
extension of the front porch on the Orlando Norcross house (16 Claremont) to
form a porte cochere, complete with mounting platform; (2) the existence of a
small projecting wooden alcove varying the otherwise flat north façade of 16
Claremont; and (3) the survival of original French cut slates on the main roof
and bichromatic slates on the dormers of the James Norcross House.
In their internal ornamentation, the two buildings exhibit greater
individuality, although the basic organization of the two structures is similar.
The two houses were richly and diversely ornamented.
Lavish use of wood paneling characterizes the public space of both
houses, with the James Norcross house using lighter oak paneling, arranged in
geometric patterns in its main staircase, than the Orlando Norcross house.
18 Claremont is also characterized by lincrusta wallpaper, a heavy
wallcovering that simulates the texture of embossed leather, whereas 16
Claremont possesses a finely wrought split landing ornamented with two spiral
shaped Romanesque columns in wood.
A succession of post-Norcross owners made considerable modifications to
the buildings’ internal spaces. These
included a nursing home, a convent, a religious commune, a Clark University
dormitory, and the homes of the Marsh Institute and JXK Library.
Although every reasonable effort was made to return altered spaces to
their original configurations, some acceptance of changes by previous occupants
and some accommodation to contemporary academic programmatic needs have
occurred.
Taken from D.L. Johnson,
October 9, 1989
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