Built in 1915. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1983. A historic map-sheet match is not published yet. The record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
From the record
“The Allen Hotel is an historic hotel building in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Built in 1915 and first operated as the Park Hotel, it is a significant local example of Renaissance Revival architecture, designed by the prominent local architect Joseph McArthur Vance.”
Wikipedia article Allen Hotel, CC BY-SA 4.0.
one of 94 National Register listings in Berkshire County · listed in 1983 · category: Building · built in 1915, by Q59919206 · one of 1 National Historic Landmarks in Berkshire County.
National Register reference number.83000566- 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 names inscribed on the monument are those of citizens of Pittsfield who died in the war, either from wounds, or, before their discharge, from disease contracted in the war ; not including citizens of other places, who served on her quota. They are as follows :
It was determined to place it at the west end of the park, in or near which, a large portion of the Pittsfield soldiers volunteered, and which possessed many other associations of patriotic interest; and the park, however beautiful, being not considered in a proper condition for the reception of the contemplated work, the town placed in the hands of the committee before-named, a further sum of seven thousand dollars, for the purpose of making some longdesired improvements. The nature of these improvements was left to the discretion of the committee, by whom the following changes were made : The oval plot which constitutes the park, was surrounded by a handsome and substantial coping of granite, outside of which a broad gravel walk, with granite curbing, was built. The surface of the plot was graded, and a considerable number of trees, which had become so thick as to impede each other's growth, were felled. The Old Elm had fallen in 1861. In addition to this, the grade of Park place was reduced so as to make it more uniform with that of Bank row.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 120 fires within 5 miles of Allen Hotel between
2002 and 2020, burning about 83 acres in total. 2 started naturally. 2 were 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
Debris and open burning
67
Recreation and ceremony
18
Smoking
7
Railroad operations and maintenance
7
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
6
Equipment and vehicle use
4
Misuse of fire by a minor
4
Natural
2
Arson/incendiarism
2
Power generation/transmission/distribution
1
Other causes
1
Fireworks
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 1,007 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Allen Hotel between 1834 and
1975: 471 Plantae, 329 Animalia, 203 Fungi, 4 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A W Evans, A. H. Mead, A. K. Harrison 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
16 workings within 5 miles of Allen Hotel: 9 past producers, 4 producers, 2 occurrences, 1 unknown.
4 still produce. What was taken out: Iron, Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Pittsfield, the town this property stands in, in 98 storm reports between 1994 and 2025: 64 thunderstorm wind, 17 hail, 13 flash flood, 3 flood.
The reports record 1 injury. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office
filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date
opens the federal record of that event.
Survey team observed several structures with shingle damage to roofs. Many limbs and several trees were knocked down. Upon observation these trees were determined to be shallow rooted. Roofs dislodged from clubhouse and dugout of Waconah Park baseball stadium. Eyewitnesses with various vantage points reported observing rotating debris consistent with a tornado. Additional reports indicate a portion of the fencing at Waconah Park was also knocked down, and bleachers along the left field were pushed backward. In addition, trees and wires were downed on Tyler Street and Woodlawn Avenue, and two moored motor boats at Burbank Park were flipped over and partially submerged. There was also a report of a tree falling on a house on Charles Street. Top winds estimated at 70 mph.
A line of thunderstorms, that developed over eastern New York, moved into southern Berkshire county shortly after noon on May 25. This line of storms continued to produce strong gusty winds that brought numerous large trees and power lines down throughout the city of Pittsfield.
A cold front moving east into Berkshire County triggered widely scattered severe thunderstorms. The storms brought down large limbs and power lines in the town of Pittsfield.
No historic map-sheet match is published
for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs
a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
Browse the county's mapped places while that work is
pending.
From the nomination file
2,246 words on record
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 Allen Hotel is located on a small urban lot in downtown Pittsfield. Surrounded by a turn-of-the-century civic district, the property abuts the Park Square Historic District (NR, 1975) on its westerly side and the Central Fire Station (NR, 1977) on the northwest. Oriented on a small 50 by 81' lot, facing easterly, the Allen Hotel was the first new building to be erected on the parcel of land on the north side of Park Square. The site had previously contained a succession of two homes belonging to the family of Pittsfield's first minister, Rev. Thomas Allen. The second Allen residence was removed in 1913, and the present hotel edifice was constructed on the site in 1914-1915.
Louis Larouche and the Park Realty Company acted as developers, employing a design by Pittsfield architect Joseph McArthur Vance. The five-story buff brick structure is rectangular in shape, with its facade located on the shorter end, and has a flat roof with widely over- hanging eaves. Brick rustication defines the basement and first floor. Regular fenestration typically consists of single rectangular windows with marble sills and lintels. Major deviations occur on the facade, where a central bay of paired windows is flanked by single bays of tri- On the fifth floor, the grouped windows are separated by wood pilasters and framed by brick soldier courses.
Large, segmentally arched openings on the first floor - including the recessed center entrance of the facade - are topped by brick voussoirs. Marble belt courses run above the basement, first, and fourth floors. The block is crowned by a wide metal entablature which features a wide frieze, dentils, and modillion blocks. At the time of construction, the building was noted for having the most elaborate cornice in the city. Mr. Larouche acted as contractor and purchasing agent.
(in one paragraph) Builder/Architect Louis Larouche, Contractor/Developer Joseph McArthur Vance, Architect The Allen Hotel possesses integrity of location, design, setting, materials and workmanship. Constructed in 1915, it is the oldest remaining hotel in Berkshire County's largest city, and reflects that city sromonentinotal aachitecthanen terealsnditiononal handig si Additionally, it was designed the Georgian Revival style. Thus, the Allen Hotel meets criteria A and C of the National Register of Historic Places. Prior to the building of the Allen Hotel, this site contained the home of Pittsfield's first minister, the Rev. Thomas Allen (1733-1810).
Allen, who gained the title of the "Fighting Parson" as a result of his Revo- lutionary War service at the Battle of Bennington, served in Pittsfield from 1764 to 1810. Three generations of the Allen family occupied the 18th century house before it was replaced by an Italianate villa in 1857; the latter house succumbed in 1913 to intensified pressures for civic and commercial redevelopment in the downtown area. In its place was built the Park Hotel (as the building was originally called), a $100,000 project developed by Park Realty Company and contractor Louis Larouche to cater to both tourists and local patrons. Mr.
Larouche stated that "he was planning to conduct a first class American hotel." Specifically, the establishment was intended to compete with the already famous Wendell Hotel (1898), also designed by Joseph McArthur Vance. The Wendell, larger and more opulent, was demolished in 1965. The opening of the Park Hotel was celebrated on April 1, 1915, by guests from Springfield, Boston, Worcester, and Webster, Massachusetts. The Berkshire Glee Club provided music for the day-long event, while a bus from the hotel greeted every train coming to Pittsfield.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 83000566, 12 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.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.
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