BlockThe nomination, in full
Bibliography, boundary description, and the people who prepared and reviewed the nomination.
FORM B - BUILDING LINSIIEKIUD DUKVEY IJAN 2 4 1990 226 FORM NO. MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION 80 BOYLSTON STREET BOSTON, MA 02116 Photos 49 18:2 attic Town Address Haverhill 009 8 Groveland Street 18:5 stairs, second floor Historic Name Hazen-Spiller House 18:8 left-hand room 18:9 fireplace, left-hand room Use: Present Residence 18:17 detail, brickwork, northeast corner 18:18 view of north facade Original Residence DESCRIPTION Date ca. 1724 local history Source First Period/Transitional Style Unknown Architect Sketch Map: Exterior Wall Fabric_ Brick - Outbuildings Garage - 20th c. WATER GROVELAND ST. IM REFERENCE :GS QUADRANGLE ALE- Z E N 19 / 331-160 / 4737-180 Havèrhil1 1:25,000 Major Alterations (with dates)_Rear e11 added by Wallace Nutting; ca.
1915 Condition Good Moved No Date N/A Acreage less than one acre Setting Suburban street on a high bank overlooking the Merrimac River surrounded by early 20th c. houses Recorded by Anne Grady - Organization Boston University Date June 1986 INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET Commnity : Form No: MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Office of the Secretary, Boston HAVERHILL 49 Property Name: Hazen-Spiller House Indicate each item on inventory form which is being continued below. SIGNIFICANCE The Hazen Spiller House retains integrity of location, materials, workman- ship and design in its brick construction and exposed frame. Built c.
1724 by Richard Hazen Jr., the house does not have a decorated frame and has lost over the years or in the modern restoration any identifiable Taylor, who owned the house from 1911 to 1915 before selling it to Nutting, indicate that the beams were originally exposed. Taylor said that the beams found underneath two later ceilings, "all show the marks and color of exposure to the air for a number of years before there was any ceiling put on." [1] Exposure of the structural frame even if un- decorated is an expression of First Period architectural practices and justifies consideration of the Hazen Spiller as a First Period building. The Hazen-Spiller house fulfills Criterion C in its significant contri- bution to our knowledge of First Period building practices. It is a rare surviving example of First Period brick masonry construction, and one of only three in the present survey.
The building is also significant as one of two through-hall-plan houses in the survey. (The fact that the other example of a through hall plan is also a brick house suggests that plan may have been chosen because brick construction facilitated the building of end wall chimneys, rather than for reasons of style.) EXTERIOR DESCRIPTION The Hazen-Spiller house is a double-cell structure, 7 bays wide, one room deep, 2 1/2 stories in height, with a through-hall plan, and interior chimneys at each end. The walls are brick, laid up in English bond with Although some of the bricks are darkened, they form no particular chromatic pattern. Corbelled brick string courses and segmental arches of stretcher bricks over the windows adorn the walls. Wallace Nutting, who restored the house in 1915, installed casement diamond-paned, leaded-glass windows with transom bars two thirds of the way up the window.
Windows are double easements except in the end bays where single casements are used. Nutting added a double-leafed door formed of vertical boards on the interior and studded with nails in a diamond pattern. (Evidence showed that the original door hadbeen double-leafed.) Nutting also built the one story brick rear ell in 1915. The rear part of the ell straddles the property line of an abutting lot, on which one outbuilding, a 20th-century garage, is located. MAJOR FIRST PERIOD FEATURES First Period features in the form of oak ceiling framing originally exposed, although undecorated, and a fireplace with rear corner ovens, are seen in the, first floor rooms. An occasional beam is exposed in the second floor rooms.
1 Staple to Inventory form at botton INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET Conmmity : HAVERHILL Form No: 49 MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Office of the Secretary, Boston Property Name: Hazen-Spiller House Indicate each item on inventory form which is being continued below. In the left-hand (west) room, the transverse summer beam, 8 1/2 inches wide is unchamfered. Joist spacing is 22 1/2 inches on centers. The south, east, and north walls of the room appear to retain early plaster. The fireplace is 4 feet, 10 inches high by 7 feet, 9 inches wide. Notes for Nutting's architect, Henry Charles Dean, indicate that the oven in the left-hand corner is original, having survived later remodelings of the firebox. The oven in the right-hand corner was rebuilt in 1915 to match left-hand one.
Although the ovens are in the side walls, their openings are an angle in the corner, supported by corbelled bricks below. The bulbous exterior forms of these beehive ovens may be seen in the closets flanking the fireplace. An historic photograph shows the left-hand beehive before the restoration partially intact. The restored ovens are based at least in part, then, on the original form. In the right-hand room, the chimney girt is exposed, but unchamfered. The summer beam is boxed and the ceiling plastered. Joist spacing deduced from nail evidence is 22 1/2 inches on The walls retain areas of original plaster. The fireplace, presumably restored in 1915 based on evidence found is 4 feet 8 inches high by 6 feet 10 inches wide. There is a smoke panel with stepped sides, similar to that in the west fireplace.
In the central stair hall, the early, perhaps original square newel post and hand rail molded on both sides survive, while the balusters are a restoration feature. In the upstairs rooms, chimney girts and rear plate are partially exposed, but unchamfered. from existing evidence, are nearly square at 47 inches high and 48 inches wide and have straight sides. Areas of original plaster Brdee Araas of oragina , plastor tgred survive upstairs also. In the attic there are six sets of principal rafters, bridle jointed at the ridge, three purlins per slope and one at the ridge. Chimney foundati8n wáfithe cellar are brick arches set against fieldstone LATER SIGNIFICANT FEATURES Nutting installed vertical board sheathing with a narrow bead on the fireplace walls in each room. Fireplaces are slightly recessed and simple mantel shelves.
Nutting exposed the summer beam and joists in the left-hand room and applied plaster between the joists. The wooden finishes Nutting created are not based on First Period precedent. They are significant for the part they play in Nuttings' widely distributed photographs of historic interiors, providing background for the antiques Nutting depicted. The wooden finishes -2- Staple to Inventory form at bottom INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Office of the Secretary, Boston Commnity : HAVERHILL Form No: 49 Property Name: Hazen-spiller House Indicate each item on inventory form which is being continued below. are also significant as an integral part of Nutting's concept for this particular house in his chain of historic houses.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION The house is associated with the early 20th century antiquarian and restoration movements, and with the influential Rev. Wallace Nutting. Nutting sought to enhance appreciation of Early American houses and antiques first through his photographs sold individually and published in books and then through the chain of historic houses he operated between 1915 and 1918. The west room and east chamber of the Hazen Spiller House are pictured in Nutting's Furniture Treasury. Nutting purchased and restored the Ironworks House in Saugus, the Cutter-Bartlett House in Newburyport and the Wentworth-Gardner House in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in addition to the Hazen Spiller House.
Nutiing's rather ambitious objective for the houses was "To show the entire development of American domestic architecture and furnishing, from the settlement to the decline of - taste, as the eighteenth century went out," [2]as he stated in the guidebook, Chain of Picture Houses. Nutting's restoration of the Hazen-Spiller house can not be considered historically accurate, and in fact, resulted in the removal of many early early if not original finishes from the house. However, Nutting should be recognized for his role in developing American appreciation of Colonial architecture and antiques in the early 20th century. REFERENCES 1. Notes on the Hazen House, Haverhill, copied for Mr. W. W. Taylor, July 7, 1914 [attributed to Taylor by Cummings] Correspondence file, SPNEA. 2. Christopher Muridy, "Dr. Wallace Nutting's Historic Houses," unpublished paper, Boston University, 1981:27.
-3- Staple to Inventory form at bottom NPS Form 10-900-e (8-86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number - Page OMB Approvel No. 1024-0018 Multiple Resource Area Thematic Group Name First Period Buildings of Eastern Massachusetts TR State Nomination/Type of Review I 42- Hatinge-Yorse House Intered in the National Roglatar 42. Hazen--Kimbal1--Aldrich Houfftered in tbe National Register Entered in the 43. Hazen--Spiller House National Begister Date/Signature xaodelouifyew s/1/5 Attest fteeper tennSgu 31/20 Attest teeper_ XlouBges 3/4/90 Attest 44. Henfield House Bubstantive Horta Keeper put.. Attest 45. Ierrick, Ella Proctor, House Intered in the TReeper_ National Register StelarByeu 319/90 46. Hopkinson, George, House Entered in the matoona 1 Rogistor /Reeper Sfelaußyen 3/4/28 Attest 47.
House at 922 Dale Street Entered in the Hational Register Keeper_ AeloresByun 3/9/44 Attest 5"4 48. House on Labor-in-Vain Road dubstecatve Beriey Soriceper Betfot Savage 3/9/90 Entered in the 49.
Howe Barn National Registes AelaByen 3/9/20 Attest 50.Humphreys, Sir John, House Entored 1n the fRroper- AelarenySye 319242 Hatiooal Regiater Attest UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR NATIONAL PARK SERVICE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES EVALUATION/RETURN SHEET REQUESTED ACTION: NOMINATION PROPERTY Hazen--Spiller House NAME: MULTIPLE First Period Buildings of Eastern Massachusetts TR NAME: STATE & COUNTY: MASSACHUSETTS, Essex DATE RECEIVED: 1/24/90 DATE OF 16TH DAY: 2/23/90 DATEOF ANDALST0/90 3/10/90 DATE OF WEEKLY LIST: REFERENCE NUMBER: 90000226 NOMINATOR: STATE REASONS FOR REVIEW: REQUEST: N SAMPLE: COMMENT WAIVER: N LACCEPT _RETURN ABSTRACT/SUMMARY COMMENTS: PROGRAM UNAPPROVED: N SLR DRAFT: N NATIONAL: REJECT 3/2/50 DATE Entered in the Hationad Bogiater RECOM./CRITERIA REVIEWER DISCIPLINE DATE DOCUMENTATION see attached comments Y/N see attached SLR Y/N CLASSIFICATION count resource type STATE/FEDERAL AGENCY CERTIFICATION FUNCTION historic current DESCRIPTION architectural classification materials descriptive text SIGNIFICANCE Period Areas of Significance--Check and justify below Specific dates Builder/Architect statement of Significance (in one paragraph) summary paragraph completeness clarity applicable criteria justification of areas checked relating significance to the resource context relationship of integrity to significance justification of exception other BIBLIOGRAPHY GEOGRAPHICAL DATA acreage UTMS verbal boundary description boundary justification ACCOMPANYING DOCUMENTATION/PRESENTATION sketch maps USGS maps -photographspresentation OTHER COMMENTS Questions concerning this nomination may be directed to Phone Signed Date Hererhill nit 8 Goveland St.
Hazln-Spiller Honse, Ist poícd Buldhusa/E Ma, PR - 1983 Haverhill, MA 8 Grveland, St- Hazen-Spiler Honse Ist P. 1985 Haverbull, MA 8 Roveland St. Hazen-Spiller House t Perea B deliys & Er Ma,T 1985 8 Groveland Sreet Haverhell, mA Hazen-Spillertoase Ist pord Buldliys o E, Ma., T2 1985 Haverlill mt 8 Grovelaud St. Hazen-Spiller House Ist pered Baldags of Te. Ma, TR - 1985 Haverhill, MA 8 bioveland St: Hagen-Soiller House Ist fercid Buldigs af TE. M Please refer to the map in the Multiple Property Cover Sheet for this property Multiple Property Cover Sheet Reference Number: 64000281