The Enterprise Building is an historic commercial building at 540 Main Street in
Worcester, Massachusetts
Worcester ( , ) is a city and county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, the city's population was 206,518 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the second-List of cities i ...
. When it was built in 1900, this five story brick building achieved notice for its elaborate
Beaux Arts decorations. The building was 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 1980.
Description and history
The Enterprise Building is located in downtown Worcester, on the west side of Main Street, roughly opposite its junction with Federal Street. It is a narrow five-story structure, its facade just two bays wide. The ground floor has a single modern storefront, which is topped by a metal cornice. The second floor has four sash windows separated by round columns and topped by a frieze band. The third and fourth floors each have two slightly projecting polygonal bay windows, with the bays separated and flanked by pilasters topped with limestone cartouches. The fifth floor has round-arch windows with terra cotta surrounds and swag panels, and is topped by band of dentil moulding and a pressed metal cornice.
The building was constructed in 1900 to a design by
Fuller & Delano
Fuller & Delano was an architectural firm in Worcester, Massachusetts, active from 1878 until 1942. It originally consisted of architects James E. Fuller and Ward P. Delano. The firm designed more than 20 buildings that were later listed on the U ...
, a prominent local firm. It was built for William Dexter, a prominent local real estate developer who owned the adjacent buildings; according to building permits it was intended as an annex to those, but it is substantially more architecturally sophisticated.
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See also
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References
{{National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts
Commercial buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts
Beaux-Arts architecture in Massachusetts
Commercial buildings completed in 1900
Buildings and structures in Worcester, Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places in Worcester, Massachusetts