The Strathglass Building is a historic commercial building at 25 Hartford Street in the central business district of
Rumford, Maine
Rumford is a New England town, town in Oxford County, Maine, Oxford County, Maine, United States. The population was 5,858 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. Rumford is home to both ND Paper Inc's Rumford Mill and the Black Mountain ...
. Built c.1906, it is an imposing four-story architect-designed
Beaux-Arts building, constructed by
Hugh J. Chisholm
Hugh Joseph Chisholm I (; May 2, 1847 – July 1, 1912) was a Canadian industrialist who later became a citizen of the United States. He was born in Chippawa, Ontario, to parents of Scottish ancestry. His early years as an entrepreneur in the ne ...
, Rumford's leading industrialist in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Later known as the Hotel Harris, it 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 building was designed by the architectural firm of
Stone, Carpenter & Willson
Stone, Carpenter & Willson was a Providence, Rhode Island based architectural firm in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. It was named for the partners Alfred Stone (1834–1908), Charles E. Carpenter (1845–1923). and Edmund R. Willson (18 ...
, based in
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...
, and was completed in 1906. It was built for
Hugh J. Chisholm
Hugh Joseph Chisholm I (; May 2, 1847 – July 1, 1912) was a Canadian industrialist who later became a citizen of the United States. He was born in Chippawa, Ontario, to parents of Scottish ancestry. His early years as an entrepreneur in the ne ...
, the industrialist responsible for Rumford's development in the late 19th century as a major paper processing center, by
Frank Bunker Gilbreth
Frank Bunker Gilbreth (July 7, 1868 – June 14, 1924) was an American engineer, consultant, and author known as an early advocate of scientific management and a pioneer of time and motion study, and is perhaps best known as the father and ce ...
. (Gilbreth built a second building in the small mill town as part of the same contract for the Rumford Falls Power Company.) Chisholm named the building after
the river in Scotland which flows near
his family's traditional seat. Chisholm also gave the Strathglass name to the
Strathglass Park District
The Strathglass Park District, located in Rumford, Maine, encompasses what was once one of the nation's finest early 20th-century mill worker housing complexes. Funded by Hugh J. Chisholm, owner of Rumford's paper mill, and designed by Cass G ...
, an area of high-quality mill worker housing in Rumford.
The Strathglass Building stands on a slightly non-rectangular lot bounded on three sides by Congress, Lowell, and Hartford Streets. It is now a four-story brick structure, with the bays of the first three floors separated by engaged limestone fluted columns. The main entrance is set under a three-story arch supported by square stone piers, and topped by a triangular pediment at the third floor. When originally built, the building only had three stories, and had a concrete balustrade with urns at the visible roofline.
this was removed in 1931, when the building was rebuilt after a devastating fire. The interior was gutted, and all that survived intact was the heavy masonry structure. The rebuilding (as the Hotel Harris) was supervised by Lewiston architects Coombs & Harriman.[''Hotel Monthly'' 1931: 92.] These additions, including the new fourth floor and flamboyant lobby, were Italian Renaissance Revival
Renaissance Revival architecture (sometimes referred to as "Neo-Renaissance") is a group of 19th century Revivalism (architecture), architectural revival styles which were neither Greek Revival architecture, Greek Revival nor Gothic Revival ...
in style, though later alterations have removed most external detail. The lobby remains.
See also
*
References
{{National Register of Historic Places
Commercial buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Maine
Beaux-Arts architecture in Maine
Buildings and structures completed in 1910
Buildings and structures in Oxford County, Maine
Rumford, Maine
National Register of Historic Places in Oxford County, Maine