FORM A- AREA Assessor's Sheets USGS Quad Area Letter Form Numbers in Area

Massachusetts Historical Commission

80 Boylston Street
55 I Marlborough I 1__ U_1122, 642-644
695-701
Boston, Massachusetts 02116
7-c-L.:~,y~\~y b'T!
_/ /
- Town Marlborough

Place (neighborhood or village)

Name of Area Upper Pleasant Street

_.Present Use residential

Construction Dates or Period late-19th to

early 20th C.
Overall Condition _

good to excellent

Major Intrusions and Alterations some visible

.i->:': .~"'~."""'."' .."'.~,., alterations and late-20th-C. additions,

Acreage ca. 8 acres

Recorded by Anne Forbes, consultant

Organization Marlborough Historical Comm.

AREA FORM

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION [X] see continuation sheet

Describe architectural, structural and landscape features and evaluate in terms of other areas within the
community.

The eight-acre area on both sides of the block of Pleasant Street between Pearl and Spring Streets
illustrates a continuum of high-style buildings constructed over a period of nearly a hundred years.
The area is outstanding in Marlborough especially for its excellent examples of Second Empire,
Queen Anne, Colonial Revival, and Spanish Revival architecture. As in the first block of Pleasant
Street, some of the buildings here replace or update significant earlier structures. The ca. wood-
frame 1860 Second Empire villa of FA Howe/JA Frye at 207 Pleasant Street, for instance, once one
of the Victorian showplaces of Marlborough, was converted to a brick, five-bay, Colonial Revival
residence earlier in this century, and later enlarged into the present Convent of the Sisters of St.
Chretlenne. The converted residence is architecturally significant in its own right, however, as a
high-style building of the early twentieth century, complete with hipped, brick-parapeted slate roof,
finely-executed concrete swans'neck-pedimented entry, and classical, pedimented wood cornice.
Similarly, a stylish mid-nineteenth-century 1112-story Gothic Revival cottage, once the only building
on the west side of the street, was replaced by two large early-twentieth-century residences. In this
case, the cottage was turned and relocated at 208A Pleasant to make way for the new houses. In
the process, it gained some additions, and was stripped of its distinctive window trim.

Although one Second Empire mansion is gone, the L.A.fL.P. Howe House, now the second-oldest
building of the group, 235 Pleasant, remains today as one of Marlborough's best-preserved examples
of a large, square, Second Empire villa, and the only one of the type that retains its original open,
landscaped setting, complete with venerable beech tree. The 2 ll2-story gable-end early Queen
(Cont.) •!

HISTORICAL NARRATIVE [X] see continuation sheet

Explain historical development of the area. Discuss how this area relates to the historical development
of the community.

The cluster of eight houses in this area includes a small enclave of shoe-manufacturers' residences
that exceeds even the first block of Pleasant, (see Form L), in providing insight into the way two
generations of Marlborough's industrialists lived. Much of it is nearly a family compound, as five
of the buildings were built by or for members of the Frye family. In addition, through the little
Elbridge Howe/Stedman Wheeler House it illustrates its origins as an early-nineteenth century
farming area. Two more houses, the George Russell House at 208 and the last house of lawyer and
former mayor William N. Davenport at 200 Pleasant belonged to two other wealthy professionals.

Today, the largest residential property here is 235 Pleasant Street. Probably dating to the 1860's,
it was first the home of Lewis A. Howe, an early shoe manufacturer in the 1850's, and older brother
of major Marlborough industrialist Simon Herbert Howe. In 1855 the brothers had begun
manufacturing shoes in the cooper's shop of their father, Samuel Howe, at the northeast comer of
Elm and Pleasant Streets. The Howe farm at that time probably extended north to include all of
the property in the area on the east side of the block, as well as several acres at the northwest
corner of Pleasant and Elm. (Cont.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES [ ] see continuation sheet

Bigelow. Historic Reminiscences of Marlborough. 1910.
Conklin, Edwin. Middlesex County and its People. 1927.
Hurd. History of Middlesex County. 1890.
Maps, birdseye views, and atlases: 1871, 1875, 1878, 1889, Sanborns.
Marlborough directories and tax valuations.

[X] Recommended as a National Register District. If checked, you must attach a completed
National Register Criteria Statement form.
INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET Community Property

Marlborough Upper Pleasant Street

Massachusetts Historical Commission

80 Boylston Street Area(s) Form Nos.
Boston, Massachusetts 02116 U 122, 642-644, 695-701

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION, cont.

Anne house at 208 Pleasant Street, which dates to the 1880's, is of a general type found throughout
Marlborough, but is more stylish than many of the otbers in its clipped-gable roofs. Although it is
covered in synthetic siding, it retains its 2-over-2-sa~h windows, double-leaf glass-and-panel door,
and decorated rake board with corner brackets.

Two outstanding houses on this block represent the Queen Anne of the 1890's. In spite of some
window replacement and a large first-story front addition, the ca. 1894 Hazelton House at 223
Pleasant Street is a good example of a tall, elaborate Queen Anne residence with complex massing
and a profusion of detail. It has a comer tower with bell-curved roof, a Tuscan-columned
wraparound porch and porte-cochere with turned balustrades, patterned shingle on the upper walls,
a double-leaf door, and a great variety of window forms. Its companion at 187 Pleasant Street, the
Walter P. Frye House, (see Form #642), in spite of a large rear addition and some synthetic siding,
is in a somewhat better state of preservation. It, too, has a wraparound porch (here witb a comer
turret) and porte-cochere. Most of its windows are original, including a Palladian window on the
south side, and three colored glass panels on the north. They retain some of the most fanciful trim
elements in Marlborough, such as the sunbursts and large swan's-neck pediment over the north stair
window, and the tall pilasters that punctuate the line of six round-headed windows in the facade
pediment.

Behind #s 187 and 207 are two stucco outbuildings--a garage and one section of a former
greenhouse-vthat are now joined, but still illustrate the early-twentieth-century Craftsman style in
their wood-banded dormers, exposed rafter ends, and simple, vertical-board doors. (See Form
#642). Stucco, a rare material in Marlborough, is also used in the city's largest and most elaborate
Spanish Revival building, the Robert Frye House of ca. 1915, at 234 Pleasant Street. A completely
intact example of the style, this massive house has an overhanging hipped, bracketed roof covered
in the red ceramic tile that is one of the hallmarks of the Spanish Revival. Also characteristic are
the deep entry portico and north side porte-cochere, with corner parapets and wide segmental
Spanish arches.

Two brick Colonial Revival houses, both built during the 1920's, complete the group. Another Frye
family mansion, the Russell Frye House at 222 Pleasant, is a large two-story, five-bay bouse with
a hipped, multi-colored slate roof with three hip-roofed dormers. Both windows and doorway mark
this house as a Federal/Classical Revival variant of the style. The large, formal center entry consists
of a six-panel door with leaded-glass fanlight and sidelights, fronted by an elegant portico on
slender, fluted Ionic columns and pilasters. A tripartite window is situated above the entry, and four
floor-length, round-arched casement windows fill the first story of the facade. A more modest
building, the William Davenport House at 200 Pleasant Street, has a side-gabled slate roof with
center chimney and two gabled dormers. Three- by two bays, it has 6-over-1-sash windows with
concrete sills and lintels and louvered wood blinds (shutters.) The one-story den or sunroom at the
south end, with a roof balcony and transomed, multi-light casement windows, is typical of the 1920's
Colonial Revival. A Federal Revival accent here is the wide center entry, where a six-panel door
is flanked by full-length sidelights, topped by a louvered fanlight, and surrounded by fluted pilasters
supporting an open, segmental-arched pediment.
INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET Community Property

Marlborough Upper Pleasant Street

Massachusetts Historical Commission

80 Boylston Street Area(s) Form Nos.
Boston, Massachusetts 02116 U 122, 642-644, 695~701

HISTORICAL NARRATIVE, cont.

Lewis Howe left Marlborough in 1870, and SH Howe, who had by then bought out his brother and
established a large factory (now demolished) on the northwest corner, acquired #235. When his
son, Louis P. Howe, was married in the 1880's he made it his home. (See Form #122.)

In the early 1870's, another Howe family member, shoe-manufacturer, Frank A. Howe, built his
residence a short distance to the south, on the property where the convent (207 Pleasant Street),
stands today. By 1879, the F.A. Howe mansion, along with much of the land in the surrounding
area, had been purchased by another major shoe-manufacturer, John A. Frye.

John Frye, while establishing what was eventually to become Marlborough's longest-lived shoe
factory at the comer of Pleasant and Chestnut Streets (see Form #116,) developed a large
"gentleman's" farm north of Marlborough center. Part of it lay just north and east of his house,
where he later laid out two major subdivision of modest homes for shoe-factory workers. Flanking
his own large Second Empire mansion, he also divided out lots for his children, Walter and Carrie.
Walter, who went on to succeed his father as president and treasurer of the John A. Frye Shoe
Company, lived first in a small house, and later, on the same site, in the 1895 Queen Anne
residence at 187 Pleasant Street. Carrie married the bookkeeper of the company, Herbert Hazelton.
They lived at 223 Pleasant Street, which was built about the same time. Sometime after the elder
John Frye's death in 1911, his residence became the home of Walter's eldest son and successor,
John A. Frye II.

Most of the block between Pearl and Spring Streets on the west side of Pleasant was the early-
nineteenth-century farmstead of farmer, builder, and later bank treasurer Elbridge Howe, (see Form
M), whose house still stands in altered form, relocated in this century to 208A, behind #208
Pleasant. By 1853 it had been purchased by his daughter, Sophronia, and her husband, express
agent L. Stedman Wheeler. Their daughter, Hattie, married George Russell, who bad a music store
on Main Street. They built #208 during the 1880's, and lived there until at least the end of the
century. 208 A was apparently rented out; its main tenant in the early part of this century was the
Frye family gardener, Walter Blunsden.
The three other houses on the west side of the block all date to the early twentieth century. #234,
probably built about 1915, was the home of Walter Frye's second son, Robert P. Frye. In the 1920's
he formed the Frye-Corbin Box Company at the corner of Hudson and Jefferson Streets (see Form
#645) to make shoe-boxes. He was the company's president, and his brother John was assistant
treasurer. Completing the occupation of this area by the Frye family, #222 Pleasant Street was
built for WaIter Frye's third son, Russell B. Frye, in the 1920's. A similar, but smaUer house of the
1920's at 200 Pleasant was built for Marlborough's former mayor, attorney William N. Davenport.
(See Form #171--105 Newton Street.)
INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET Community Property

Marlborough Upper Pleasant Street

Massachusetts Historical Commission

80 Boylston Street Area(s) Form Nos.
Boston, Massachusett.s 02116 U 1.22,642-644, 695-701

AREA DATA SHEET

· INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET Community Property

Marlborough Upper Pleasant Street

Massachusetts Historical Commission

80 Boylston Street Area(s) Form Nos.
Boston, Massachusetts 02116 U 122, 642·644, 695-701
INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET Community Property

Marlborough Upper Pleasant Street

Massachusetts Historical Commission

80 Boylston Street Area(s) Form Nos.
Boston, Massachusetts 02116 U 122, 642-644, 695-701

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Massachusetts Historical Commission Community Property Address
80 Boylston Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02116 Marlborough Upper Pleasant
Street

Area(s) Form No(s).

U 122, 642-644, 695-701

National Register of Historic Places Criteria Statement Form

Check all that apply:

[ ] Individually eligible [ ] Eligible only in a historic district

[ ] Contributing to a potential historic district [xl Potential historic district

Criteria: [xl A [] B [xl C [] D

Criteria Considerations: ll A [] B [] C [] D [] E [] F [] G

Statement of Significance by An_n_e_F_o_r_b_e_s _

The criteria that are checked in the above sections must be justified here.

This area meets Criterion C of the National Register as a small district encompassing outstanding,
and primarily well-preserved, examples of four of the major architectural styles present in
Marlborough between 1860 and 1930. As an enclave composed primarily of houses belonging to
important Marlborough industrialists, many of them members of the Frye family, as well as LP Howe
of the SH Howe Co., it embodies aspects of both the industrial and social development of the city
during its years as a major manufacturing community, and thus meets Criterion A. The area retains
integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association.

Eligible resources for such a district include:

642 187 Pleasant Street Walter P. Frye House

643, 644 207 Pleasant Street Frye outbuildings

695 200 Pleasant Street W.N. Davenport House

696 207 Pleasant Street F.A. Howe/J.A. Frye House/

Convent of Srs. of St Chretienne

697 208 Pleasant Street George Russell House

698 208A Pleasant Street Howe/Wheeler House

699 222 Pleasant Street Russell B. Frye House

700 223 Pleasant Street Herbert Hazelton House

701 234 Pleasant Street Robert P. Frye House

122 235 Pleasant Street LNLP Howe House