Built in 1894 (Romanesque Revival architecture). Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981. 19 historic topographic surveys show this location, the earliest from 1886.
From the record
“The Intermediate Building is a historic municipal building at 324 Washington Street in Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts. Designed by architects Hartwell and Richardson, and completed in 1894, it is a two-story brick building with Romanesque styling.”
Wikipedia article Intermediate Building, CC BY-SA 4.0.
One of 342 National Register listings published here for Norfolk County · listed in 1981 · category: Building · built in 1894, Romanesque Revival architecture, by Hartwell and Richardson.
Architectural style. Romanesque Revival architecture, Queen Anne style
Architect. Hartwell and Richardson
National Register reference number.81000112- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
The town, and more particularly the village of Wellesley Hills, has a wide reputation for healthfulness, owing in great measure to its elevation, combined with the dryness of its soil and freedom from all malarial and other unhealthful tendencies, and has been the resort for many years, by the advice of the best physicians, for persons afflicted with pulmonary complaints. The charm of the town of Wellesley consists delightful drives and its beautiful landscape scenery, and no enlarged description of its enchanting outlooks, its elegant residences, its public buildings, its hills and vales, its calm waters and rugged ledges can be otherwise than futile and unsatisfactory. The main strect, named for our first President, and noticed with favor by Washington when he made his tour, in 1789, as a " good road," affords a notable drive, much of the way arched with trees, passing through our three villages, rising first to a view of the valley of the Charles, which all admire and artists love, by churches of various architecture and varied beliefs, with hills near and remote, crowned with villas of the wealthy, and and north, with Nonantum behind and Maugus by our side, to suggest to us romances of Indian life, and excite our sympathy for the sufferings of the red men, by the former home of W. G. T. Morton, the discoverer of that greatest of boons to human sufferers, sulphuric ether, by the colleges the monument more enduring than brass, of Henry F. Durant, by the beautiful Lake Waban, Lake of the Wind, named for Eliot's first convert, by the elegant villas of the Hunnewells to the limits of the busy town of Natick.
Maugus Hill, named for an Indian called Magos, of whom but little is known, save that he deeded land about Mauegus Hill to the town of Dedham in 1681. Wellesley Hills for a short time, was also the name of an Indian who transferred his claim to the tract of land of which Wellesley was a part to the inhabitants of the town of Dedham, and many other names preserved in names of organizations and in names of farms and country-seats.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 113 fires within 5 miles of Intermediate Building
between 2015 and 2020, burning about 82 acres in total. 1 started naturally. None was recorded as arson.
Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted
here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
Reported cause
Fires
Recreation and ceremony
56
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
36
Debris and open burning
12
Power generation/transmission/distribution
3
Smoking
3
Misuse of fire by a minor
1
Other causes
1
Natural
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. Museums hold 13,291 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Intermediate Building between 1805 and 1975: 5,487 Animalia, 3,786 Fungi, 3,580 Plantae, 192 Protozoa, 168 Chromista, 46 Unrecorded, 32 Bacteria.
12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by ?, ? ex Herb. W.G. Farlow, A C Gibson and others. Each is a
physical object with a catalogue
number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was
collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be
concluded from a species being absent.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
11 workings within 5 miles of Intermediate Building: 8 past producers, 2 producers, 1 plant.
3 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Stone, Tantalum. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
United States Geological Survey topographic
sheets whose coverage includes this point. Matched by taking the coordinate the National Park Service records for this property, then
testing that coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet.
When this property was proposed for the
National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is,
and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain.
It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the
occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s
typewriter's.
Description of the property
The Intermediate Building is located in the Wellesley Hills section of Wellesely adjacent to the Town Hall which it serves as an annex. It is fronted by a large lawn landscaped with shrubs and trees. The building, whose plan forms a shallow T, is constructed of red brick with terra cotta trim. From a raised basement it rises two stories to a slate hipped roof which is pierced by two interior chimneys. The symmetrical facade is eleven bays in length and is organized around a five bay central pavillion. Fenestration in this section consists of 6/6 double hung sash with segmental transoms at the first story and rectangular transoms at the second. The wings contain paired round arched openings with keystones at the first story and triple 2/2 windows with transoms at the second.
The outer arches of the first story house the entries while the inner ones contain paired 2/1 windows. The roofline is pierced by three shingled dormers; the central one contains paired 6/2 windows and has a gabled roof while the smaller flanking ones have single 6/2 windows and hipped roofs with copper finials. The entries open onto stairhalls which run to the second story; access to the unfinished third story is aained by a continuation of the east staircase. Two classrooms on one side and two laboratorieson the other flanked the hall between the stairways. The second floor was completed by a woman teacher's room and girls' retiring room. 1e01 Tret morT 20.er: CASHL 8.
Statement of significance
/Architect Hartwell and Richardson Statement of Significance (in one paragraph) The Intermediate Building possesses integrity of location, design, setting, and materials as well as sianificant historical associations as the town's first high school and one of only five schools built between 1896 and 1902. In addition it is a fine example of schoolhouse architecture. Therefore, the Intermediate Building meets criteria A and C of the National Register of Historic Places. Growth in Wellesley was modest until after the Civil War when it began to assume its present character as a prosperous residential suburb.
In the early 1890's the School Committee recognized this growth and recommended construction of the town's first high school to supplement the wodd frame Shaw School on Forest Street (now demolished). In 1893, the Wellesley Town Meeting approved their recommendation and selected the firm of Hartwell and Richardson to design it. Columbus, Washington, Lincoln, and Shakespeare are placed to remind us of what they have done and of what we can do ourselves in life." Henry Hartwell and William Richardson practiced together from 1882-1919 and were prolific designers in the Boston area.
Although they designed several public buildings in the Richardsonian Romanesque style like the Belmont Town Hall (1881) and the Hancock in Lexington (1890-NR), the firm was best known for their domestic suburban work in the shingle style: Examples include the H.D. Underwood House in Belmont (1885) and the Henry Yerxa House in Cambridge (1887). Hartwell's philosophy of school construction was spelled out in School Architecture pub- lished by the American Institute of Instruction, Bethlehem, NH, 1896. According to him, the "little red school house (was) passe." Schools would be designed for their specific purpose and built on a convenient location, with good drainage. He favored a southeast exposure for steady light during the school day.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 81000112, 9 pages, held by the National Archives in Record
Group 79. See the
catalogue record.
Listed places nearby
6 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
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