Jonathan Eames House, Union Avenue (moved to Prospect Street), Framingham

Source document Quoted word for word from HABS MASS,9-FRAM,6-. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

An eighteenth-century example of a New England frame house (salt-box) growing by accretion, and in step with successive generations of the Eames family, over a period of two hundred and forty-eight years. Description: The Eames House is a frame structure with clapboarding. It stands two stories tall and is topped by a hipped roof. The house has two chimney stacks, each several feet forward of the current ridge line, one in the center of the building and one toward the south end. The east (front) facade has six windows, grouped in pairs, and an entrance way. This entry is off-set from the center of the structure, toward the north end of the house. The door (replacement) is made of four panels and sits within a classicizing door surround.

Two fluted pilasters flank the door and rise from pedestals into an austere entablature. In the south facade is another entry; this door is made of six panels and its pediment (not drawn) extended into the second floor window sill. The windows are six over nine lights on the first floor and appear to be six over six lights at the second story. Additions to the north end of the house were made in and to the south in Fires destroyed the stair hall and damaged parts of the structure. In the Eames house was moved and re-built on Prospect Street. At that time, the floor was lowered in one room, plywood sheathing was used, a cellar constructed, and white cedar shingles added to the roof. Angle cuts in the girts suggest that the southeast part of house was built as a "salt-box" house.

History: In Henry Eames raised his frame structure on Union Avenue; his son, Henry, added the north section in Another descendent, Abel, added the southern section to the house in The Eames family owned the house until when a developer purchased the property. Slated for demolition for an apartment building project, the Eames house fell under jurisdiction of the town's Selectmen, who in turn sold it to Stephen Avery Randall. Mr. Randall moved the house to the Prospect Street address in order to spare it from the bulldozer's path. The house now rests on a lot less than an acre in size, roughly fifty feet back from the street.