FORM B BUILDING MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS

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1 FORM B BUILDING MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS Photograph Assessor s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number UMASS No. 309 & 310 Town: Amherst Place: University of Massachusetts Williamsburg N/A AMH.100 Address: 911 North Pleasant Street Historic Name: Wysocki House Wysocki Garage & Barn (attached to house) Uses: Present: Academic Original: Residence and Barn Date of Construction: 1910 Source: University of Massachusetts Facilities Dept. Style/Form: Vernacular Architect/Builder: Unknown Exterior Material: Foundation: House: brick. Ell and Garage: concrete. Barn: fieldstone. Topographic or Assessor's Map Wall/Trim: House & ell: vinyl siding. Garage: clapboard. Barn: vertical boards. Roof: House & ell: slate. Garage: asphalt shingles. Barn: metal. Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: Freestanding Barn (UMass Building #311) located in the fields east of the House and Garage & Barn Major Alterations (with dates): Installation of vinyl siding on house and ell (date unknown). Condition: House: Good. Garage & Barn: fair Moved: no X yes Date Acreage: Total Campus Acreage: 1,348 Acres Setting: Set back from road, with a front yard. Surrounded by paved driveways and small parking lots. Recorded by: W. Maros/C. Weed/C. Beagan Organization: VHB/Pressley Associates Date (month / year): May 2009 Follow Massachusetts Historical Commission Survey Manual instructions for completing this form.

2 Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. If checked, you must attach a completed National Register Criteria Statement form. Use as much space as necessary to complete the following entries, allowing text to flow onto additional continuation sheets. ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION: Describe architectural features. Evaluate the characteristics of this building in terms of other buildings within the community. Wysocki House (Building #309) and Wysocki Garage & Barn (Building #310) are attached structures. The combined structure is a typical example of the New England attached house, shed and barn building tradition. A separate structure located in the field to the east of the house, Wysocki Barn (Building #311), is described in its own Form B. Wysocki House (Building #309) is a 2½-story wood frame house with a side gable roof, a front porch on its west elevation and a 1½ story rear ell on its east side. The house is three bays wide and two bays deep, with a brick foundation, slate roof and vinyl siding. The porch has a shed roof and Queen Anne posts. The main entry is in the west elevation, within the porch. The central door has a 3/1 sash window at either side. The second story has three evenly spaced 2/1 windows. Wysocki House s south and north elevations have identical window patterns: two evenly spaced 2/1 windows in both the first and second stories, with a 2/1 window in the gable peak. The ell s south elevation is four bays wide, with a projecting, windowed, one bay extension at its west end; a door to the east of the extension; two 2/2 windows to the east of the door; and a simple shed door at the east end of the ell. The ell s north elevation contains five evenly spaced 2/2 windows. Wysocki Garage & Barn (Building #310) is attached to the east end of the ell. The Garage is a 1½-story structure with a side gable roof, a concrete block foundation, clapboard siding and an asphalt shingle roof. This structure s south elevation contains two double-leaf shed doors, with a pedestrian door at the east end of this elevation. The Garage s roofline is higher than that of the ell, but the southern slope of these section s roofs is contiguous. The Garage s north elevation contains three evenly spaced small square windows, which are blocked. The barn portion of Wysocki Barn & Garage is attached to the east end of Wysocki Garage. This structure is a large 2½-story New England barn with a shed roof extension on its south side. The Barn has a fieldstone foundation and vertical board siding. The roof is covered with overlapping square metal sheets. The Barn has large double-leaf doors in the centers of its west, south and north elevations, with small square windows alongside these doors. The square windows have been blocked. The double-leaf door in the south elevation has a small inset door in its southern leaf. At the south side of this double-leaf door is another single door, which has a small square window, now blocked, on either side. The Barn s north elevation has no windows or doors. Continuation sheet 1

3 Landscape Visual/Design Assessment Wysocki House and Wysocki Garage & Barn are located on the east side of North Pleasant Street. The house is accessed by a bituminous concrete pedestrian walk leading perpendicular from the road to the front of the house. A bituminous concrete vehicular drive leads along the south side of the house and garage perpendicular to North Pleasant Street, with a small parking area on the south side of the house. The topography surrounding the buildings slopes gently towards the road from east to west. Vegetation surrounding the house and garage consists of deciduous trees over mown lawn. Evergreen trees, deciduous and evergreen shrubs, and perennials are planted near the foundation of the house and in the lawn at the front of the house. A low concrete retaining wall borders the house and garage on the north side adjacent to a bituminous concrete vehicular drive. Wood stockade and split-rail fences are located on the property. The Wysocki Barn is located to the southwest of the house and garage in a flat, open field. The barn is accessed by a crushed stone drive off the nearby bituminous concrete access drive. Climbing vegetation is growing on the building. Numerous eighteen-wheel trailers are parked in the field off the crushed stone drive between the house/garage and the barn orthophotograph of the Wysocki House, Garage & Barn (center) and surrounding landscape, north is up (MassGIS). Continuation sheet 2

4 HISTORICAL NARRATIVE Discuss the history of the building. Explain its associations with local (or state) history. Include uses of the building, and the role(s) the owners/occupants played within the community. The University of Massachusetts, Amherst was chartered as the Massachusetts Agricultural College in 1863 but did not accept its first class until As one of two land grant universities in Massachusetts, the university s original mission was agricultural education. Its mission, however, evolved within the first 20 years in response to the changing needs of the United States. While agriculture remains, even today, a mainstay of the University s mission, the University now also supports engineering, science, education, and liberal arts colleges and departments. A full historical narrative of the University of Massachusetts from its founding to 1958 is contained in the survey report. This narrative was prepared in 2009 by Carol S. Weed, Senior Archaeologist with Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc. Shown below are selected highlights from the text of the full historical narrative, along with additional information pertinent to the specific building that is described in this Massachusetts Historical Commission Building Form. This section contains: (1) highlights of the historic periods in the development of the University of Massachusetts, leading up to and including the period when the building was constructed, (2) information about the university in the decade when the building was constructed, (3) information about the circumstances that led to the construction of the building, along with information about its architect, if known, and (4) an analysis of the historic landscape of the building : Administration and Initial Campus Layout As the educational mission evolved in the years after 1863, so did the university s approach to its facilities and its landscape. There was no accepted plan for the layout of the college, despite the preparation of various plan proposals in the 1860s, including separate proposals from the country s preeminent landscape planners, Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted, who had formerly worked together on the winning design for New York City s Central Park. Neither Vaux s plan, nor Olmsted s plan to create a campus around a central green, were accepted by the University Trustees : The Early Growth In the absence of a coordinated plan, the Trustees put existing buildings that were acquired with the campus land into service as agricultural laboratories. Campus development for several decades after 1863 was sporadic and focused on the construction of individual buildings to meet specific functional needs of the fledgling university. It was not until after 1900, during a period of rapid student population growth and resultant new building construction, that the University Trustees again sought proposals for comprehensive campus planning. In 1912, a professional landscaping publication reported that Warren H. Manning, formerly affiliated with the Olmsted firm, had spent over four years preparing a comprehensive plan for the University Trustees. The Trustees had considered it imperative for the college to plan harmonious development that would conserve the beauty of campus grounds while meeting the needs of a growing student population whose expanding range of activities was unprecedented. Manning s plan designated three distinct sections of the campus, the Upland, Midland and Lowland Sections. Each section was intended to be the locus of specific functions, with clusters of purpose-built structures to serve those functions. For example, one section would be designated for faculty, women s and horticultural facilities. A second section would contain administration, research, science and student life (dormitory, dining hall, and sports) facilities. The third section would be dedicated to poultry, farming and sewage disposal facilities. Although Manning s Upland, Midland, and Lowland sections are not fully realized, it is apparent that discipline specific groupings were developed. Building clusters, especially those related to agriculture, administration, and the hard and earth sciences (physics, chemistry, and geology) continued to expand through the present day. Continuation sheet 3

5 By World War I and continuing through the 1920s, University records frequently refer to the inadequacy of the physical plant; the lack of class room space; the lack of properly ventilated and lighted spaces; and the danger of having to cancel classes because of a lack of appropriate facilities. Expansion of the campus through acquisition of additional land was considered essential if the University were to construct new and better facilities to address these deficiencies and excel as an institution of higher education. Wysocki House and Wysocki Garage & Barn Wysocki House and Wysocki Garage & Barn are legacy structures that were conveyed with the land when the Massachusetts Agricultural College acquired the farmland associated with these structures. No information has been discovered regarding the history of this property. According to the Massachusetts Historical Commission Form B that was prepared by the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission in June 1988, Wysocki House is highly similar to a house at 11 Dickinson Street in Amherst as well as a few other (unnamed) examples that are located in town. Landscape Analysis Wysocki House and Wysocki Garage & Barn are located outside the core of the campus and are not shown on historic campus maps or plans. No historic photographs of the buildings have been located. BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, Massachusetts Historical Commission Form B for 911 North Pleasant Street (MHC # AMH.100), June 1988 Continuation sheet 4

6 Figures Detailed Map Continuation sheet 5

7 Wysocki House, view east, September 2008 Continuation sheet 6

8 Wysocki House at left, portion of Wysocki Garage & Barn at right, view northeast, September 2008 Continuation sheet 7

9 Wysocki House rear wing at left, Wysocki Garage & Barn at right, view northeast, September 2008 Continuation sheet 8

10 Wysocki Garage & Barn, view northeast, September 2008 Continuation sheet 9

11 Wysocki Garage & Barn, view northwest, September 2008 Continuation sheet 10

12 Wysocki Garage & Barn, view southwest, September 2008 Continuation sheet 11

13 MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Community Property Address MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING UMASS AMHERST Building #309, 310 & MORRISSEY BOULEVARD 911 North Pleasant Street BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS Area(s) Form No. 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 Potential historic district Criteria: A B C D Criteria Considerations: A B C D E F G Statement of Significance by: Rita Walsh and Walter Maros, Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc. The criteria that are checked in the above sections must be justified here. The Wysocki House (UMass #309) and the Wysocki Garage and Barn (UMass #310) are recommended not eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. The buildings are not recommended individually eligible as they do not possess individual significance nor do they display any significance in construction or architectural design. The Wysocki House s physical integrity has been diminished through the addition on the south elevation and the installation of vinyl siding that covers the original surface of the house and ell. The Garage and Barn are not significant examples of New England agricultural structures. Although a large number of buildings on the campus are recommended eligible as part of a potential historic district, the Wysocki House, Garage, and Barn are not recommended eligible as a contributing resource to this district as they are physically isolated from this concentration of buildings and are separated from them not only by distance, but by a series of parking lots, and the large scale Mark Meadows Elementary School, constructed in 1962.