Easton

The Ames Free Library is a public library designed by noted American architect H. H. Richardson. It is located at 53 Main Street, Easton,... Massachusetts, immediately adjacent to another Richardson building, Oakes Ames Memorial Hall. The library was built from 1877 to 1879, although it did not open until 1883. It is generally rectangular, with broad gable projecting from its north end and a rectangular tower rising where the gable meets the main mass. The gable's front facade contains a heavily arched entry on the first floor and a row of five arched windows separated by pairs of short columns above. The facade is light-brown Milford granite laid in random ashlar with reddish-brown Longmeadow brownstone trim. Its roof is red-orange tile. A children's wing was added in 1931, eliminating the original lavatory and document room. Within, the library's major rooms, stack wing, hall, and reading room are laid out longitudinally. The reading room's fireplace is primarily by Stanford White, and the stone and bronze medallions of Oliver Ames were designed by Augustus Saint-Gaudens.
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The Ames Gate Lodge is a celebrated work by American architect H. H. Richardson. It is privately owned on an estate landscaped by Frederick Law... Olmsted, but its north facade can be seen from the road at 135 Elm Street, North Easton, Massachusetts. The lodge was designed and constructed in 1880-1881 for Frederick Lothrop Ames, son of railway magnate Oliver Ames, Jr., as the northern entrance to his Langwater estate. Although Langwater dated from 1859 with 1876 additions, its northern regions had until then remained unfinished. Ames thus engaged Richardson and Olmsted in collaboration on its creation. Olmsted's landscape designs were implemented in 1886-1887. The Gate Lodge is a remarkable synthesis of oversize stone wall, arched gate, and gatehouse building, perhaps based in part on Richardson's appreciation of the Central Park bridges designed by Calvert Vaux. It forms a long, low mass lying directly athwart the estate's entry road, which runs southward within its dominating, semicircular arch. The massive walls appear to be crude heaps of rounded boulders from the estate soil -- "cyclopean rubble" in Vincent Scully's memorable phrase—trimmed in Longmeadow brownstone.
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The F.L. Ames Gardener's Cottage is a small residential house in North Easton, Massachusetts. This building was designed in 1884 by noted American... architect Henry Hobson Richardson and built the following year. This building sits on the original Ames estate and was designed soon after the neighboring Ames Gate Lodge . Fredrick L. Ames also commissioned Richardson to build the nearby Old Colony Railroad Station. Two other notable buildings in North Easton, the Ames Free Library and Oakes Ames Memorial Hall, were also Richardson designs and commissioned by the Ames family. The exterior of the Gardener's house has been renovated and is not easily identified as a Richardson building. However the footprint and structure remain intact, including a circular tower on one corner of the house. The ivy-covered walls, long associated with this building, were removed during the renovation.
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Oakes Ames Memorial Hall is a historic hall designed by noted American architect H. H. Richardson, with landscaping by Frederick Law Olmsted. It is... located at Main Street, Easton, Massachusetts, immediately adjacent to another Richardson building, Ames Free Library. The hall was built 1879-1881 as a gift to the town from children of Congressman Oakes Ames. It was originally intended for use as a Town Hall but in practice has mainly served as a meeting space for private groups. The structure's main facade, altogether 96 feet long by 51 feet deep, presents an arcade of five massive arches with a row of windows set above and an octagonal tower at its right corner. Its first floor is constructed of native, pinkish-gray North Easton granite with Longmeadown brownstone trim. The second floor is brick, with a north-facing dormer half finished in timber and stucco. The steeply peaked roof above is finished in red tile. The front's third-floor, dormer window is wreathed with sculpted foliage, and displays the initials O. A. and twelve signs of the zodiac. The main hall inside is on the second floor, and 59 feet long by 47 feet wide with a 20-foot height.
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