The Allen Hotel is an historic

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a ref ...

building in

Pittsfield, Massachusetts Pittsfield is the largest city and the county seat of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the principal city of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Berkshire County. Pittsfield� ...

. 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 Joseph McArthur Vance (January 22, 1868 – December 14, 1948) was a prominent architect in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. His portfolio comprised residential, commercial, industrial and recreational buildings. Much of his work was centered in Pittsfi ...

. It was individually listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1975, and included in an expansion of Pittsfield's Park Square Historic District in 1991. It no longer houses a hotel, and has been repurposed for other uses.

Description and history

The former Allen Hotel building stands in downtown Pittsfield on the west side of Wendell Avenue Extension, just north of East Street (

United States Route 7 U.S. Route 7 (US 7) is a north–south United States highway in western New England that runs for through the states of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont. The highway's southern terminus is at Interstate 95 (I-95) exit 1 ...

). It is a five-story steel and masonry structure, its exterior finished in buff yellow brick with marble trim. It is crowned by a flat roof with an extended cornice decorated with modillions and dentil moulding. The front facade is divided into three sections. The ground floor functions as a raised basement, with wide segmented-arch housing multipart windows flanking a deeply recessed entrance. A narrow trim string course runs at the base of the windows, with a wider one separating the first and second levels. The second through fourth levels each have paired sash windows in the center, sharing a common lintel, while the side bays have rectangular windows in an inverted Palladian form. Another string course separates the fourth and fifth floors, with three-part windows flanking central paired windows. The hotel was built in 1915 by Louis Larouche to a design by Joseph McArthur Vance, a prominent local architect. The site was originally the home of Pittsfield's first minister, Rev. Thomas Allen, and had remained in his family until 1913. Originally called the Park Hotel, it was renamed the Allen Hotel by new owners in the 1930s, and that name remained with it for some time. In 1991 it was operating as the Wendell House Hotel; it has since been repurposed for other uses.

Description and history

See also

References

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