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NPS Form 10-900 (Rev. 10-90) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service OMB No. 1024-0018 RECEIVED 2280 663 AUG 0 5 2011 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form NAT. REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES NATIONAL PARK SERVICE This form is for use in nominating or requesting determinations for individual properties and districts. See instructions in How to Complete the National Register of Historic Places Registration Form (National Register Bulletin 16A). Complete each item by marking "x" in the appropriate box or by entering the information requested. If any item does not apply to the property being documented, enter "N/A" for "not applicable." For functions, architectural classification, materials, and areas of significance, enter only categories and subcategories from the instructions.
Place additional entries and narrative items on continuation sheets (NPS Form 10-900a). Use a typewriter, word processor, or computer, to complete all items. 1. Name of Property historic name Berlin Town Hall other names/site number Berlin Town House 2. Location street & number 12 Woodward Avenue N/A not for publication city or town Berlin N/A _ vicinity state Massachusetts code MA _ county_ Worcester code_ 027 _zip code 01503 State/Federal Agency Certification As the designated authority under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1986, as amended, I hereby certify that this nomination - request for determination of eligibility meets the documentation standards for registering properties in the National Register of Historic Places and meets the procedural and professional requirements set forth in 36 CFR Part 60.
In my opinion, the property meets - does not meet the National Register Criteria. I recommend that this property be considered significant - nationally - statewide Elocally. (D See continuation sheet for additional comments.) mona sumor Signature of certifying official/Title Brona Simon, SHPO, MHC july 27,2011 Date State or Federal agency and bureau In my opinion, the property meets - does not meet the National Register criteria. (O See continuation sheet for additional Comments.) Signature of certifying official/Title State orFederal agency and bureau 4. National Park Service Certification 1, hereby certify that this property is: - entered in the National Register - See continuation sheet. - determined eligible for the National Register - See continuation sheet.
- determined not eligible for the National Register - removed from the National Register - other (explain): Date sotonuf rine kependt Beall esa Date of Action 9.15.4 Berlin Town Hall Name of Property 5. Classification Ownership of Property (Check as many boxes as apply) _private X public-local _ public-State - public-Federal Worcester, Massachusetts County and State Category of Property (Check only one box) X building(s) _ district _ site - structure - object Name of related multiple property listing (Enter "N/A" if property is not part of a multiple property listing.) N/A 6.
Function or Use Historic Functions (Enter categories from instructions) GOVERNMENT: town hall SOCIAL: civic, meeting hall Number of Resources within Property (Do not include previously listed resources in the count.) Contributing 1 Non-contributing 0 0 1 _ buildings sites structures _objects Total Number of contributing resources previously listed in the National Register 0 Current Functions (Enter categories from instructions) SOCIAL: meeting hall; civic RECREATION and CULTURE: auditorium 7. Description Architectural Classification (Enter categories from instructions) LATE VICTORIAN: Italianate Materials (Enter categories from instructions) foundation STONE: granite block BRICK walls_ WOOD: weatherboard roof other ASPHALT N/A Narrative Description (Describe the historic and current condition of the property on one or more continuation sheets.) NPS Form 10-900-a (Rev.
8/2002) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service OMB No. 1024-0018 Berlin Town Hall Name of Property Worcester, MA County and State National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Name of multiple listing (if applicable) Section number 7 Page 1 7. DESCRIPTION Setting The 1870 Berlin Town Hall, although no longer functioning as the town administration building, still occupies a commanding position at 12 Woodward Avenue, overlooking the triangular Meeting House Common at the main intersection in the center of town. While this outstanding building is individually eligible for the National Register, it is also part of a cluster of historic resources which together form a potential National Register historic district.
Occupying the lower part of a slope just northeast of the 18th- century Bullard House (NR pending), the Town Hall faces southeast toward the 1826 First Parish Meetinghouse. An 1850s Italianate house with an attached barn/carriagehouse is located on the adjacent lot to the east. Behind the building, the ground rises sharply up the wooded hillside of Powderhouse Hill to the town's 1814 brick powderhouse and two early 20**-century fire sirens. Stretching southwest to southeast across the intersection of Woodward Avenue with Linden and Central streets (both part of MA Route 62), are the oldest town cemetery (the Old Burying Ground), several 19*-century houses on large lots, and a long-time store that once belonged to some of Berlin's most prominent residents. The long, rectangular building nearly fills its 6,970-square-foot lot.
A short length of dry-laid fieldstone retaining wall at the rear west corner is of recent construction, and a small earthen mound close to the north rear corner, supported by another section of fieldstone retaining wall, covers a cistern built in 2005. Two short, paved driveways flank the southwest and northeast sides of the building. Although long used as tacit rights-of-way for the Town Hall, both of the driveways are situated on the abutting properties. A wide set of ten rough-granite steps, dating to 1871, rises from the street to the front entry. The steps were reset in 1974. Granite curbing marks both the sides of the stairway and the bottom edge of the steep grassed slope at the front of the building.
Exterior description (Photos 1-3) The 1870 Berlin Town Hall is a long, rectangular, 2 ½-story, gable-front building, expanded in 1904 by a 20-foot-deep, hip-roofed, rear addition of the same height and width. The building is wood frame and clad in wood clapboards. Its roof is gray slate, first installed in 1888. The 56-foot-long main building stands on a granite-block foundation over a partial cellar; the rear addition has a brick foundation. One narrow brick chimney, remaining from a former symmetrical pair, rises from the main southwest roof slope, about 15 feet back from the front elevation. Two cylindrical metal ventilators, spaced wide apart on the roof ridge, date to 1905. In style and detail, the Town Hall is a restrained version of the Greco-Italianate combination that was popular in public buildings shortly after the Civil War.
The three-bay symmetrical façade displays a lingering Greek Revival feature in the tripartite window above the center entry, although its sash configuration-4/4 in the center unit, flanked by tall, narrow 2/2s-is more commonly associated with the Italianate (Photo 1). A 6/6 window occupies the front gable peak, but the other façade windows are 4/4s of tall, narrow, more Italianate proportions. The main entry, which originally had a double-leaf door of two equal parts, is now a paired combination of a wide six-panel and a narrow three-panel door, (continued) (Expires 5-31-2012) NPS Form 10-900-a (Rev. 8/2002) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service OMB No.
1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Berlin Town Hall Name of Property Worcester, MA County and State Name of multiple listing (if applicable) Section number 7 Page 2 apparently dating to the 1930s. Each door has raised panels with heavy applied moldings, and a long glass panel in the middle section. A two-light transom surmounts the opening. The doorway is flanked by a pair of widely spaced, simple pilasters on plinths, ringed with moldings at the tops and bases. Mounted on the wall between the doorway and each pilaster is a small, wood-framed, glass-front signboard that opens to allow the posting of notices. All of the windows in the main building have heavy molded crowns, and their casings display one of the building's most decorative features-an upper casing board with a recessed circle in the center, and half- circles at the outer ends.
Original, two-part, louvered, wooden shutters survive at some of the windows; the other windows have one- or two-piece modern wood replacements. The building has the wide boxed eaves with prominent returns, characteristic of most Italianate buildings, but it apparently never had the decorative cornice brackets commonly associated with the style. The cornerboards are wide, and their recessed panels have an ogee-top detail that is now largely obscured by aluminum downspouts. The present flat-roofed entry porch was added to the building in 1875. Its outer corners are supported by a pair of square columns matching the pilasters in design and proportion. The porch frieze is ringed with an architrave molding, and bears the words "TOWN HALL" in raised letters on the front side. The porch apparently always has had a balcony with a low balustrade and heavy, square, boxed cornerposts.
The present balustrade was rebuilt in 1967 with cornerposts similar to the original, but with diagonally set two-inch-square, rather than turned, balusters (Photo 2). A short concrete walk with an iron-pipe railing, extending from the porch to a set of steps descending to the northeast driveway, was built in 1970, the gift of the Berlin Tuesday Club. The handsome iron-pipe railings on the front stairs date to 1898, when they replaced a former pair of wooden railings. Their front posts were once considerably higher, and supported a pair of kerosene lamps that were replaced by glass globes when the building was electrified in 1909. When the electric lamps were removed in 1950, the posts were cut down to the same height as the railing. Both side elevations are the original four bays long, plus an additional window bay and a door in each side wall of the 1904 addition.
The newer windows possibly contain sash relocated from the former back wall of the 1870 building. While the later windows match those in the main building, they have a somewhat simplified circle and half-circle detail in the upper casing-without any edge detail, whereas the 1870 windows have a narrow bead surrounding each circle. On the northeast elevation, a double-leaf, five-panel door forms a sixth bay at the rear corner, opening out onto a recently rebuilt wooden platform with pressure-treated wood handrails. The wall plane of this side of the building continues into a small one-story, shed-roofed addition, built in 2007-2008 to house restrooms (Photo 3). That addition, which extends across the north half of the rear wall of the building, replaced a 1932 lavatory ell of about the same dimensions.
While its wood clapboard siding matches that on the rest of the building, the addition has an asphalt-shingle roof and a concrete foundation. A small window is located at the south end of each side of the addition. The only windows in the rear elevation of the main building are three 3/3 windows in the first story of the main rear wall, southwest of the bathroom addition. (Expires 5-31-2012) (continued) NPS Form 10-900-a (Rev. 8/2002) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service OMB No.
1024-0018 Berlin Town Hall Name of Property Worcester, MA County and State National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Name of multiple listing (if applicable) Section number 7 Page 3 The fenestration of the southwest elevation, like the northeast, has four window bays at both first and second stories in the original 1870 building, and an additional window bay and an exterior entry in the 1904 portion. Here, a single, contemporary, flush door under a molded crown is located between the fourth and the fifth window bays. It opens onto a handicapped-accessible ramp with a square-dowel balustrade. Toward the front end of this elevation, between the first two windows, is a projecting, gable- roofed bulkhead entry, clapboarded on the sides, and with a four-panel door with raised panels.
The bulkhead was added for access to a small section of cellar that was dug in 1946, when a central steam- heating system was installed. Tucked close to the wall between the bulkhead and the end of the ramp is a large emergency generator. (Expires 5-31-2012) Interior description The interior of the Berlin Town Hall has changed remarkably little in either spatial arrangement or detailing since its only major addition was constructed in 1904. It remains a building clearly intended for local town government, with multiple meeting rooms, assembly halls, and an office. As in most New England town halls of its era, the main community meeting hall (the actual "town hall") fills the upper story, while the first floor is broken up into smaller spaces.
Also typical of many later 19t*-century, gable-front town halls is the center front entry hall with double winding stairs rising to either side of the front door. More unusual is the presence of not just one, but three assembly halls, as well as the survival of several period furnishings connected with the municipal function of the building. First story (See Sketch Plan.) Entry hall. In the manner of many New England Italianate town halls, the foot of each of the paired main staircases is located toward the rear of the broad entry hall (Photo 4), and the stairs curve back toward the façade as they rise to the level of the main meeting hall. Each has a massive octagonal newel post, a molded handrail that makes an extra curve at the top of the stairs, and a heavy, turned balustrade- all typical of the Italianate influence of the time.
A closet is located under the front of each staircase; one was converted to a stairway to the boiler room below in the 1940s. Most of the doors in the building are four-panel with applied moldings. All were grain-painted, although those in the entry hall were painted over; they are now being restored by a local artisan. The heavy molded casings of the doors in the entry hall differ from those in the rest of the building. It may be that they date to the 1904-1905 renovations, and that the original moldings from the entry hall were reused elsewhere in the building. Selectmen's Room. Southwest of the entry hall is the L-plan Selectmen's Room. (Photo 5). Its pressed- metal ceiling dates to the remodeling that accompanied the 1904 enlargement of the building.
Predating the construction of the 1870 building, however, is the rare surviving weights and measures_cabinet that stands against the southwest wall (Photo 6). Built in 1848 to store the weighing and measuring apparatus, which from that year forward was provided to towns by the state, this is a massive wooden cupboard with grained, paneled upper and lower doors. It holds an array of standard weights that were used with the large balance scale contained in the cabinet. In the south corner of the room is another extraordinary survival-the cast-iron town safe purchased from Marvin & Co. in 1873 (Photo 7). (continued) NPS Form 10-900-a (Rev. 8/2002) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service OMB No.
1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 7 Page _4 Berlin Town Hall Name of Property Worcester, MA County and State Name of multiple listing (if applicable) The safe stands six feet high; it is embellished in high Victorian fashion with metallic decoration on a black background, and with a painted landscape scene on the inside of each of its double doors. The tall, glass-front bookcases that line the room's north and east walls were built by carpenter Josiah Sawyer in (Expires 5-31-2012) bookcases are highly varnished, with lower doors of vertical tongue-and-groove "matchboard." The center bookcase is lower in height than the rest, as a result of the pipe from the heating stove in the adjacent room, which passed through this room to connect to the southwest stove chimney.
This room still has the tile floor that was laid in 1957, now covered with carpet. The small L-plan space opposite the Selectmen's Room and northeast of the entry hall was originally built as a coatroom. Between 1904 and 1928 it housed the town library, and during those years its walls were apparently lined with bookcases (no longer extant). Some of the original varnished chestnut dado, composed of four-inch beaded vertical boards, remains, as do sections of the molded chair rail. Other surviving features are the tall, shallow beadboard cabinet in the east front corner, and a high, grain- painted, standing slant-topped desk that was apparently used by the librarian. A partition was added in 1953 to create an office for the town welfare department in the front section, which today is a large storage closet. Barnes Hall.
(Photo 8) Northwest of the former coatroom/library and extending to the rear of the 1904 addition is a long, narrow meeting hall that is still actively used for its original purpose. A simply detailed, uninterrupted space named for the donor of the Town Hall land, the portion of the room in the original 1870 building has a pressed-metal ceiling without a cornice that dates to 1916, and the same type of varnished dado as the coatroom. A molded, varnished picture rail rings the upper section of the side walls about 18 inches below the ceiling. A heavy wooden post stands off-center in the newer section. Against the rear wall in the 1904 addition, a two-part stairway (the upper portion is enclosed) leads to the second floor. The stairway has turned balusters and a heavy newel post, both of a simpler design than those at the main stairs in the earlier front entry hall.
A five foot, four inch high varnished oak dado covers the lower half of the wall behind the stairs. The present wooden floor in this space was laid in 2007, replacing a tile floor installed in 1954. This hall was subdivided in 1979 and 1995 for town offices; the partitions were removed after 2000 (See Section 8). The Town Clerk's office was built into the west corner of the hall, adjoining the kitchen. Memorial Hall. (Photo 9) The center and west portions of the first story are occupied by the large assembly room that was designed and dedicated as a memorial to Berlin's Civil War dead. To this day, it is still an extraordinary place of honor and memory. Above the dado, all four walls are filled with the framed photographs and portraits of Berlin's soldiers, along with framed documents and other photos relating to all of the wars in which local citizens served their country and community.
Four large, shield-shaped marble plaques bearing the names ofthose who died in the war arethe focal points ofthe northwest and southwest walls. A varnished octagonal wood post is located in the center of the room. The pressed-metal ceiling and crown molding were installed in 1905. During some recent repair work, a portion of the cornice was temporarily removed, revealing part of the large band of foliate stenciling at the edge of the ceiling that was done in 1889. The hardwood floor was laid in 1907. Significant objects in this room include the banner of (continued) NPS Form 10-900-a (Rev. 8/2002) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service OMB No.
1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Berlin Town Hall Name of Property Worcester, MA County and State Name of multiple listing (if applicable) Section number 7 Page 5 Berlin's local militia company, which was active between 1787 and 1820, and several long, wooden, spindle-back settees set upon wooden storage bins. (Their legs were removed when they were relocated from the town meeting hall on the second floor.) A door in the rear wall of Memorial Hall leads to the northwest kitchen-one of the spaces for which the 1904 addition was built. Part of this room was later partitioned, and became a broadcast studio in the 1990s. The cabinetry in this room was replaced in the mid 20th century, and new cabinets installed along the rear wall in 2007.
The large set of wooden wall cabinets and lower drawers against the southwest wall, however, apparently date to the latter part of the period of significance, probably about 1949. Second story Town Meeting Hall (or "Grand Hall"). The main town meeting hall fills all of the original 1870 building at the second story northwest of the entrance hall. The hall gained a full-width stage across the northwest end when the building was expanded in 1904. The room itself is an uninterrupted space, well lit by the three large windows along each side wall. A low chestnut dado rings the room below the level of the window sills, and a molded picture rail is mounted at the top of the walls, just below the cove cornice of the 1924 pressed-metal ceiling. The hardwood, narrow-board floor dates to the 1904 renovations. At the southeast end, a pair of four-panel doors opens into the entry hall.
To either side near the outer part of that wall, two more pairs of four-panel doors lead to large storage closets beside the stairs. An electroplated cast-iron chandelier of multiple kerosene lamps, stored in the attic after 1909, was wired for electricity and reinstalled in the center of the ceiling (its original location) by Assabet Valley Vocational School students in 1984 (Photo 10). A large wooden cabinet, with a single four-panel door that stands against the south wall of the room, came from one of the two storage closets, where it held items belonging to the Berlin Grange. Mirroring the southeast closet doors, two more sets of paired four-panel doors are located in the rear corners of the room. The interior walls and the front dado of the 1904 platform stage are sheathed in painted tongue-and-groove matchboard, as is the former dressing room in the southwest corner of the stage.
Still in place, but non-functional due to its delicate condition and to current safety-code regulations, is a rolled-up, full-width canvas stage curtain of the 1930s, painted with a European landscape scene. Archaeological Description While no ancient Native American sites are known on the Town Hall property or in the general area (within one mile), sites may be present. Environmental characteristics of the property represent locational criteria (slope, soil drainage, proximity to wetlands) that are favorable for the presence of Native sites. The Berlin Town Hall is located on a well-drained, level to moderately sloping glacial outwash plain, in close proximity to wetlands. Three tributary streams of North Brook and two unnamed ponds are located within 1,000 feet to the east, south, and west of the Town Hall.
North Brook is a tributary of the Assabet River, which drains the entire town of Berlin. In spite of the information presented above, the potential for locating significant archaeological resources, both ancient Native American and historic, on the Town Hall property is low. The size of the parcel (0.16 acres) and construction of the Town Hall, later (continued) (Expires 5-31-2012) NPS Form 10-900-a (Rev. 8/2002) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service OMB No. 1024-0018 Berlin Town Hall Name of Property Worcester, MA County and State National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Name of multiple listing (if applicable) Section number 7 Page 6 additions, and related utilities would have destroyed any potential archaeological resources located on the property prior to 1870.
The Town Hall, which has a partial basement, fieldstone retaining wall, and cistern built in 2005, covers nearly the entire lot. While the Town Hall property was subdivided from the Bullard House that also contained a store and tavern located at 4 Woodward Avenue, no evidence is present that indicates any of these structures or related outbuildings were located on the nominated property. (Expires 5-31-2012) .(end) Berlin Town Hall Name of Property 8. Statement of Significance