The Felton Street School is a historic school building built in 1882 located at 20 Felton Street in

Hudson Hudson may refer to: People * Hudson (given name) * Hudson (surname) * Henry Hudson, English explorer * Hudson (footballer, born 1986), Hudson Fernando Tobias de Carvalho, Brazilian football right-back * Hudson (footballer, born 1988), Hudso ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. The -story brick-and-stone structure served as the town's high school until 1957. Today it is a residential apartment building. The building's design and ornamentation is typical of Queen Anne and Stick style architecture. It is 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 ...

History

Architects

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 ...

designed the Felton Street School. Construction costs totaled $15,000. It opened in 1882 as the new Hudson High School and served in that capacity until 1957. In 1901 the originally four-room school was expanded to eight rooms. Local merchants published and sold postcards depicting the Felton Street School during the early 1900s. When the Hudson and

Massachusetts Historical Commission The Massachusetts Historical Commission (MHC) is a review board for state and federal preservation programs for the United States state of Massachusetts. It consists of 17-member panel of appointed representatives from state and private agencies and ...

s inventoried the building as a historic property in 1978, they described its use as both "mental health facility" and "vacant," noting recent vandalism. Since then the building has been renovated into 12

loft A loft is a building's upper storey or elevated area in a room directly under the roof (American usage), or just an attic: a storage space under the roof usually accessed by a ladder (primarily British usage). A loft apartment refers to large ...

-style apartments. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on February 27, 1986.

Architecture

The Felton Street School's plan is T-shaped. The building's foundation is

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

. Its front façade has a projecting three-story

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

d pavilion with large

brackets A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. Typically deployed in symmetric pairs, an individual bracket may be identified as a 'left' or 'r ...

at the roof corners and applied Stick style decoration—including a rising sun motif—in the gable. A

portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cult ...

supported by similar large brackets shelters the main entrance set in this pavilion. Six-over-six triple-paned rectangular windows punctuate the structural brick exterior walls on the front and side façades, while the rear façade has arched windows. The window sills and

lintel A lintel or lintol is a type of beam (a horizontal structural element) that spans openings such as portals, doors, windows and fireplaces. It can be a decorative architectural element, or a combined ornamented structural item. In the case of w ...

s are made of

brownstone Brownstone is a brown Triassic–Jurassic sandstone that was historically a popular building material. The term is also used in the United States and Canada to refer to a townhouse clad in this or any other aesthetically similar material. Type ...

. The detailed brick

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...

corbel In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applied to the s ...

led and the building's chimneys have Queen Anne style ornamentation. The school's original hipped

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...

roof contains hipped

dormer A dormer is a roofed structure, often containing a window, that projects vertically beyond the plane of a pitched roof. A dormer window (also called ''dormer'') is a form of roof window. Dormers are commonly used to increase the usable space ...

s also sheathed with slate.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts School buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts National Register of Historic Places in Middlesex County, Massachusetts Buildings and structures in Hudson, Massachusetts

History

Architecture

See also

References