Knollwood is an historic estate at 425 Salisbury 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 ...
. Originally encompassing about , the estate has been reduced to only , and is now home to the
Notre Dame Academy. The estate 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.
It is one of the city's grandest surviving early 20th-century estates.
[
Knollwood was built in the 1910s for industrialist Lyman Gordon (1861-1914), cofounder of ]Wyman-Gordon
Wyman-Gordon is a company that designs and manufactures complex metal components. Founded in 1883 as a manufacturer of crankshafts for looms, it has a long history of making forged metal components, particularly for the aerospace industry. Wyman-G ...
, although he died before it was completed. The main house is a -story stucco construction, topped by a complex hipped tile roof. Its basic form is that of a central block with slightly asymmetrical flanking wings. The central portion has a slightly recessed pavilion that rises a full three stories to a decorated gable. The eastern flanking wing housed kitchen facilities, while the west wing end features a Palladian window on the first floor which leads out to a terrace. The approach to the house is along an imposing tree-lined allée. The estate includes several outbuildings, also built c. 1914, which are styled similarly to the main house. Among them area caretaker's house, carriage house or garage, and servants' quarters.
Following Gordon's death, the estate was purchased in 1917 by Lucius J. Knowles, president of Crompton and Knowles, and in 1928 by Theodore Ellis, another local company owner and art collector. After Ellis' death much of the original estate was subdivided.[ The remnant portion of the estate has been home to the private all-girl Notre Dame Academy since the 1950s.
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See also
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References
{{National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts
Historic districts in Worcester, Massachusetts
Houses completed in 1914
National Register of Historic Places in Worcester, Massachusetts
Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts