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FORM B  BUILDING
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION
MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Assessor’s Number
USGS Quad
UMASS No. 28
Area(s)
Williamsburg
Form Number
N/A
Town: Amherst
Place: University of Massachusetts
Photograph
Address: 161 Thatcher Way
Historic Name: Lewis House
Uses: Present: Dormitory
Original: Dormitory
Date of Construction: 1940
Source: University of Massachusetts Facilities Dept.
Style/Form: neo-Georgian
Architect/Builder: Louis Warren Ross
Exterior Material:
Foundation: Concrete
Wall/Trim: Brick
Topographic or Assessor's Map
Roof: Slate
Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: None
Major Alterations (with dates): None
Condition: Good
Moved: no | X |
yes | |
Date
Acreage: Total Campus Acreage: 1,348 Acres
Setting: Located on the west side of Thatcher Way, on a
grassed and treed slope above the University’s Northeast
Residential Area quadrangle, with a wooded hill rising
above its roofline on the east side of the building.
Recorded by: W. Maros/C. Weed/C. Beagan
Organization: VHB/Pressley Associates
Date (month / year): May 2009
Follow Massachusetts Historical Commission Survey Manual instructions for completing this form.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET
[AMHERST] [161 Thatcher Way]
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION
Area(s)
Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
___ Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.
If checked, you must attach a completed National Register Criteria Statement form.
Use as much space as necessary to complete the following entries, allowing text to flow onto additional continuation sheets.
ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION:
Describe architectural features. Evaluate the characteristics of this building in terms of other buildings within the community.
Lewis House is one of ten structures that comprise the Northeast Residential Area of the University of Massachusetts – Amherst.
These ten buildings were uniformly designed in neo-Georgian style between 1935 and 1959, and laid out in a bilaterally
symmetrical site plan surrounding an open grassed area that is known as the Quad (quadrangle). Originally designed as
dormitories, the group includes Knowlton House, Arnold House, Hamlin House, Crabtree House, Leach House, Lyon House,
Dwight House, Thatcher House, Lewis House and Johnson House. All continue to serve as dormitories in 2008, except for
Arnold House, which was converted into offices in 1966.
The main planning axis of the Northeast Residential Area runs northeast-southwest, in a straight line between the central doors
of Lewis House and Arnold House. This axis is the center line of the quadrangle’s bilateral symmetry, meaning that the building
footprints and appearance of Hamlin, Leach, Dwight and Johnson Houses, located on the north side of the axis, are mirrored by
the building footprints and appearance of Knowlton, Crabtree, Lyon and Thatcher Houses on the south side of the axis. The
spatial relationship of Lewis House and Arnold House as the anchors of the planning axis is visually reinforced by the cupolas
that top these two buildings.
Lewis House is a brick neo-Georgian structure of 1940 with a central wood cupola, a slate gambrel roof with central pediments
on its northeast and southwest elevations, regularly-spaced hip roof attic dormers, and paired brick interior chimneys at the
northwest and southeast ends of the building. The building is 19 bays wide and three bays deep. It has decorative brick quoins at
its corners, a brick water table at its basement level, and brick stringcourses. The windows are wood. Because the land slopes
downward to the northwest, the central portion and southeast wing of Lewis House are 3½ stories in height, while the northeast
wing has an above-grade basement that makes this portion of the building 4½ stories on both its northeast and southwest
elevations. Lewis House has a wood dentil cornice at the roofline and within the gable peaks.
The 3-bay southeast end elevation has a side entrance, set at the half-flight level between the basement and first story. The
entrance is sheltered within a paneled recess that has a projecting wood doorframe with pilasters and a pediment. The door has
3/3 fixed panes in its upper half and two vertical panels in its lower half. The fenestration pattern above the doorway on the
southeast end elevation is set at the half-story level, including an oculus window immediately above the doorway, which
indicates that staircase landings may be located behind these windows. The attic story of the southeast end wall includes two
oculus windows, flanking a central 8/12 sash window, and a demilune or crescent-shape opening that contains a louvered vent.
The building’s northeast elevation facing Thatcher Way is composed of a 5-bay wide, front gable, projecting central brick
portion containing the main entry, which is flanked by 7-bay wide brick wings. The main entry is at the top of a flight of
concrete stairs. The window arrangement at either side of the front door suggests that the 8/8 sash windows at the outer edges of
the projecting central portion (which do not align horizontally with the windows in the wings) are set at the half-story level in
order to provide natural light for interior staircases that flank the entry door, while the window close to each side of the door may
light the entry hall. The third story windows in these presumed staircase sections are oculus windows framed with brickwork that
has concrete keystone motifs set at the top, bottom and sides of the round windows. The gable peak contains a central 8/8 sash
window that has a multi-paned casement window at either side. These three gable peak windows are framed within a single flush
arch that makes the three windows take on the appearance of a single Diocletian window unit. Over all, the fenestration of the
east elevation consists of 12/12 sash on the first story, 8/12 on the second story, 8/8 on the third story and 8/8 in the attic
Continuation sheet 1
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET
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[AMHERST] [161 Thatcher Way]
Area(s)
Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
dormers. The basement level has 4/2 awning windows, with 8/8 sash windows in the two bays at the northwest end of this
elevation, where the basement is above ground level because of the slope of the land.
The building’s southwest elevation is likewise composed of a five-bay wide, front gable, projecting central brick portion
containing the main entry, which is flanked by 7-bay wide brick wings. The main entry is at the top of a flight of brick and
concrete stairs, within a slight recess that is sheltered by a shallow portico in the Roman Doric Order. The door has 3/3 fixed
panes in its upper half and two vertical panels in its lower half. The portico supports a second story wooden bow window that
contains a central 6/6 sash window with a 4/4 sash window at either side. The bow window has dentil moldings at its cornice and
a lead-color standing-seam metal dome roof. Two 12/12 sash windows are located to either side of the portico on the first story
of the projecting central portion of the building, and two 8/12 sash windows are on either side of the second-story bow window.
The third story of this central portion contains six evenly spaced 8/8 sash windows. The attic gable contains an attached pair of
2/6 round arched casement windows. White painted wood scrollwork is set into the attic gable on either side of the paired
windows. This decorative treatment is visually reminiscent of the east elevation attic gable of one of the most high-profile new
campus buildings of the period, specifically Dunster House at Harvard University (built 1930), where the Dunster family coat of
arms is flanked by similar scrollwork. Consistent with the windows on its northeast elevation, the fenestration of Lewis House’s
southwest elevation consists of single windows with 12/12 sash on the first story, 8/12 on the second story, 8/8 on the third story
and 8/8 in the attic dormers. The basement level has 4/2 awning windows, with 8/8 sash windows in the two bays at the
northwest end of this elevation, where the basement is above ground level because of the slope of the land.
The central cupola has three wood stages: (1) a tall, square, platform with wood quoins, set on the main roof of Lewis House, (2)
atop that platform is a smaller and shorter square cupola base, surrounded on all sides by a walkway with a wood fretwork
railing and (3) above that base is the top part of the cupola, which has four projecting sides, each side of which has a central
arched louvered opening, corner pilasters and a dentil cornice. The cupola is capped by a lead-color metal dome that has an
ornate finial with a weathervane.
Continuation sheet 2
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET
[AMHERST] [161 Thatcher Way]
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION
Area(s)
Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Landscape – Visual/Design Assessment
Lewis House is located along the west side of Thatcher Way, to the north of Thatcher House, and to the south of Johnson House
on a site that slopes from the east to the west. All four sides of Lewis House are bordered by bituminous concrete pedestrian
walks. The walks along both the eastern and western sides of the building include sets of concrete stairs with handrails. The site
to the west side of the building consists of a steep slope with deciduous trees over ground cover. At the base of the slope is a
mown lawn quadrangle with bituminous concrete pedestrian walks. The quadrangle is framed by ten buildings. To the east of
Lewis House is Thatcher Way with a heavily wooded/forested area beyond. Site furnishings surrounding Lewis House include
wooden benches and tables.
2005 orthophotograph of the Lewis House (center) and surrounding landscape, north is left (MassGIS).
Continuation sheet 3
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION
[AMHERST] [161 Thatcher Way]
Area(s)
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HISTORICAL NARRATIVE
Discuss the history of the building. Explain its associations with local (or state) history. Include uses of the building, and the role(s) the
owners/occupants played within the community.
Overview
The University of Massachusetts, Amherst was chartered as the Massachusetts Agricultural College in 1863 but did not accept
its first class until 1867. As one of two land grant universities in Massachusetts, the university’s original mission was
agricultural education. Its mission, however, evolved within the first 20 years in response to the changing needs of the United
States. While agriculture remains, even today, a mainstay of the University’s mission, the University now also supports
engineering, science, education, and liberal arts colleges and departments.
A full historical narrative of the University of Massachusetts from its founding to 1958 is contained in the survey report. This
narrative was prepared in 2009 by Carol S. Weed, Senior Archaeologist with Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc.
Shown below are selected highlights from the text of the full historical narrative, along with additional information pertinent to
the specific building that is described in this Massachusetts Historical Commission Building Form. This section contains: (1)
highlights of the historic periods in the development of the University of Massachusetts, leading up to and including the period
when the building was constructed, (2) information about the university in the decade when the building was constructed, (3)
information about the circumstances that led to the construction of the building, along with information about its architect, if
known, and (4) an analysis of the historic landscape of the building.
1863-1867: Administration and Initial Campus Layout
As the educational mission evolved in the years after 1863, so did the university’s approach to its facilities and its landscape.
There was no accepted plan for the layout of the college, despite the preparation of various plan proposals in the 1860s,
including separate proposals from the country’s preeminent landscape planners, Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted, who
had formerly worked together on the winning design for New York City’s Central Park. Neither Vaux’s plan, nor Olmsted’s plan
to create a campus around a central green, were accepted by the University Trustees.
1867-1916: The Early Growth
In the absence of a coordinated plan, the Trustees put existing buildings that were acquired with the campus land into service as
agricultural laboratories. Campus development for several decades after 1863 was sporadic and focused on the construction of
individual buildings to meet specific functional needs of the fledgling university. It was not until after 1900, during a period of
rapid student population growth and resultant new building construction, that the University Trustees again sought proposals for
comprehensive campus planning.
In 1912, a professional landscaping publication reported that Warren H. Manning, formerly affiliated with the Olmsted firm, had
spent over four years preparing a comprehensive plan for the University Trustees. The Trustees had considered it imperative for
the college to plan harmonious development that would conserve the beauty of campus grounds while meeting the needs of a
growing student population whose expanding range of activities was unprecedented.
Manning’s plan designated three distinct sections of the campus, the Upland, Midland and Lowland Sections. Each section was
intended to be the locus of specific functions, with clusters of purpose-built structures to serve those functions. For example, one
section would be designated for faculty, women’s and horticultural facilities. A second section would contain administration,
research, science and student life (dormitory, dining hall, and sports) facilities. The third section would be dedicated to poultry,
farming and sewage disposal facilities.
Although Manning’s Upland, Midland, and Lowland sections are not fully realized, it is apparent that discipline specific
groupings were developed. Building clusters, especially those related to agriculture, administration, and the hard and earth
sciences (physics, chemistry, and geology) continued to expand through the present day.
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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET
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Area(s)
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1916-1931: World War I and the Transition Years
Long range building programs were developed beginning with Landscape Gardening Professor F.A. Waugh’s 1919 plan. Like
Manning’s 1911 plan, Waugh’s 1919 work emphasized building groups in order to maintain the proper balance between
buildings, cultivated fields, meadows and lawns, forests and trees. By World War I and continuing through the 1920s, University
records frequently refer to the inadequacy of the physical plant; the lack of class room space; the lack of properly ventilated and
lighted spaces; and the danger of having to cancel classes because of a lack of appropriate facilities. Expansion of the campus
through acquisition of additional land was considered essential if the University were to construct new and better facilities to
address these deficiencies and excel as an institution of higher education.
The 1920s, however, had the fewest buildings constructed of any decade in the campus history to that point. The slow pace of
building is largely attributed to the annual funding levels that were appropriated by the Massachusetts Legislature during the
decade.
1931-1941: Great Depression, New Deal
The change in campus orientation wrought by the expansion of the school’s mission began in the 1930s with its name change to
Massachusetts State College. With that program expansion there was a concerted effort to modernize and expand the campus
facilities. The campus population had grown steadily during the 1920s.
In 1933, the campus was hosting about 1,200 students in its graduate and undergraduate sections. By 1935, there were 1,300
students enrolled representing a 53 percent increase in five years and of 80 percent in ten years, prompting the University to limit
the freshman class to 300 students due to the inadequacy of facilities and staff to care for a greater number. This student
population was putting extreme pressure on basic resources such as the library.
Despite the growing student population and an identified need for additional and improved campus facilities in the 1920s and
1930s, the onset of the Great Depression with its wide-ranging consequences effectively restricted funding to the bare minimum
needed to operate. By late 1933, the funding outlook had improved through the economic stimulus initiatives of the Federal
Government, and National Recovery Act funds were available for the construction of a library, a new administration building,
and other unspecified buildings for the University.
As part of the University’s planning effort to select a site for the new library, the Campus Planning Committee charged with this
work issued a final report in late 1933, which contained five recommendations for campus development: 1) That the general
organization and building program on the campus be planned so as not to interfere with the sightliness [sic] and beauty of the
present central open space, 2) That buildings of such a general service nature (library, dining hall, etc.) that they affect the entire
student body be located in the first zone immediately adjacent to the central open space, 3) That buildings dealing with services
more specialized (agriculture, home economics, etc.), and therefore affecting only certain groups of students, occupy the second
zone, 4) That buildings used by students, but not directly contributing to organized instruction (dormitories), occupy the third
zone and 5) That buildings dealing with problems of general maintenance and physical service (heating plant, carpenter shop,
horse barn, etc.) occupy the outer, or fourth zone.
The committee went on to note that with these five recommendations in mind, they would site newly proposed buildings
according to the defined zones. These zones were basically the ones that Professor Waugh had recommended in his 1907 and
1919 planning reports and Manning had proposed in his 1911 plan. The zones or sections were designed to focus significant
elements of the college’s mission to its physical core which was defined as the broad, central bench with its hallmark pond.
Everything that supported these core elements were dispatched to outer zones.
Despite documents entitled “Final Report of the Campus Planning Committee,” the group operated in one form or another as the
primary planning unit on campus for the next 15 years, until 1948. The committee continued to focus on where buildings and
facilities would be best sited relative to the campus missions.
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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET
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[AMHERST] [161 Thatcher Way]
Area(s)
Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
1930-1940
By 1933, the University of Massachusetts, then known as the Massachusetts State College, was facing a severe shortage in
student housing. Between 1929, when the Great Depression began, and 1933, student enrollment had grown by more than 40
percent, from 862 to 1,220 students, quite unlike periods during earlier depressions when student enrollment had declined. No
new dormitories for men had been added to the campus since 1868 and the one campus dormitory for women, Abigail Adams
House, was completely filled, which prompted the College to stop enrolling additional women in 1932.
Lewis House
In response to this housing shortage, the College began construction of a dormitory complex at the southeast corner of North
Pleasant Street and Eastman Lane, which ultimately consisted of ten neo-Georgian buildings now known as the Northeast
Residential Area. The first building of this complex was Thatcher House, which was constructed in 1935 to the design of
architect Louis Warren Ross, who was a member of the College’s class of 1917. Ross’s later works for the school include the
Student Union, which was constructed in 1956. Ross also designed Lewis House, which was begun in 1940 and was named for
deceased MSC President Edward Morgan Lewis (b.1872-d.1936, President 1926-27). Besides Thatcher and Lewis Houses, Ross
designed at least five other neo-Georgian buildings of this complex, including Hamlin House (1949), Knowlton House (1949),
Crabtree House (1953), Leach House (1953) and Johnson House (1959). Cary’s 1962 history of the University indicates that the
primary reason the College was able to pay for the construction of new buildings in general during the depression of the 1930s
was because the Federal government was providing new forms of financial aid at that time, which supplemented more traditional
sources of capital improvement funding such as alumni donations. However, the construction of the Northeast Residential Area
dormitories was financially made possible through the efforts of the MSC Building Association, a private group that was led by
alumnus Alden C Brett (MAC, 1912) and issued bonds to pay for the costs of the construction. This financing was structured in
such a way that the dormitories were leased to the MSC Building Association for 20 years, during which time the rent paid by
student occupants was used to pay down the bonds. At the end of the 20-year lease, the bonds were to be fully paid and the
dormitories were to revert to the State.
The integrated design of Lewis House and the other structures of the Northeast Residential Area quadrangle is in the tradition of
ambitious campus expansion planning of the 1930s. The most notable example of this kind of campus expansion in the neoGeorgian style during the 1930s may be President Lowell’s House plan for Harvard, which includes Dunster House. The
similarity between the gable peak scrollwork at Dunster House (1930) and here at Lewis House (1940) indicates that architect
Louis Warren Ross sought to create a consistent but distinctive neo-Georgian architectural vocabulary for the Massachusetts
State College campus. The development of the Northeast Residential Area quadrangle is unusual for the consistent use of neoGeorgian over a long period of time, from 1935 through 1959, in order to complete the quadrangle in a unified style.
Landscape Analysis
Historic plans indicate that Lewis House (1940) was the second building of the North residential area/quadrangle complex to be
constructed, preceded by the Thatcher House (1935) to the south. In 1919, prior to construction of Lewis House, the site of the
building was occupied by experimental orchards and experimental grass plots. A 1943 campus map is the first to show Lewis
House completed. The landscape shown around the building consists of a street tree planning along both sides of a spur off
Thatcher Way at the northeast corner of the building (vegetation no longer extant), trees at the building’s corners along the
western façade (no longer extant), and walks on all four sides of the building (extant). Access from North Pleasant Street was
provided by a walk that runs perpendicular from North Pleasant Street to the southwest corner of Thatcher House (extant). A
c.1948 campus map shows a similar treatment of the landscape. A bituminous concrete walk was added across the mown lawn of
the quadrangle to the west of Lewis House in the 1970s (extant).
A comparison of the existing conditions with historic photographs of the Lewis House indicates that landscape immediately
surrounding building has changed dramatically from the time of its construction. Changes include the introduction of ground
cover to the formerly grassy slope along the western façade, new mature deciduous and evergreen trees on the western slope that
block formerly prominent views of the building entrance, the loss of evergreens trees and shrubs that once framed the principal
building entrance on the western façade, the loss of clipped evergreen shrubs that bordered the walk on the top of the western
slope, and the loss of deciduous trees at the corners of the western side of the building.
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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET
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[AMHERST] [161 Thatcher Way]
Area(s)
Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 7
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET
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Area(s)
Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES
___, Harvard Houses (en.wikipedia.org, 2007)
David L. Adams and Lynne E. Adams, Massachusetts Memories: UMass Amherst History (Amherst, Collective Copies, 2008)
Harold Whiting Cary, The University of Massachusetts: A History of One Hundred Years (Amherst: University of
Massachusetts, 1962)
Daniel J. Fitzgibbons, Arnold House Turns 50, In the Loop: News for Staff & Faculty (www.edu.edu/loop, 2004)
Joseph S. Larson, Personal communication to VHB 25 March 2009 concerning the development of the Northeast Residential
Area
Samuel Eliot Morison, Three Centuries of Harvard: 1636-1936 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1936)
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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET
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Figures
Detailed Map
Continuation sheet 9
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET
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Area(s)
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Lewis House, view east, September 2008
Continuation sheet 10
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET
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Area(s)
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220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Lewis House, view northwest, September 2008
Continuation sheet 11
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET
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Form No.
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Lewis House, no date (mid 20th century)
Courtesy Special Collections and Archives, W.E.B. Du Bois Library, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Lewis House on left, no date (mid 20th century)
Courtesy Special Collections and Archives, W.E.B. Du Bois Library, University of Massachusetts Amherst
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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET
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[AMHERST] [161 Thatcher Way]
Area(s)
Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Lewis House, no date (mid 20th century)
Courtesy Special Collections and Archives, W.E.B. Du Bois Library, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Continuation sheet 13