Athenwood and the Thomas W. Wood Studio

Athenwood and Thomas W. Wood Studio
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Athenwood looking west from Northfield Street
Location	Montpelier, Vermont
Coordinates
Built	1850
Architect	Thomas Waterman Wood
Architectural style	Carpenter Gothic
NRHP Reference #	74000259
Added to NRHP	June 13, 1974

Athenwood, located at Montpelier in the U.S. state of Vermont, was the home of Thomas Waterman Wood (November 12, 1823 – April 14, 1903), American painter and native of Montpelier.

Wood built the house in 1850–1851 and named it Athenwood for his wife, Minerva Robinson Wood. (Minerva was the Roman goddess of wisdom, and Athena was her Greek counterpart.) Located at 39 and 41 Northfield Street, the house and studio are private residences.

The wooden house is built in the Carpenter Gothic style, a part of the Gothic Revival architectural movement of the 19th century. Wood designed the house, and was likely influenced by popular pattern books circulated by A. J. Davis and Andrew Jackson Downing. Living for a part of the year in Boston, Wood built Athenwood as a summer home and workplace. The house was faced in shiplapping, and the windows, eaves, and porches trimmed in cut wooden patterns like upended petals, running grape leaves, and ivy. Trained as a cabinetmaker, Wood may have carved the wood trim himself. A small balcony on the east side of the house, entered from the second floor, has elaborate Gothic balusters. In the current use as a private home, some of the original furnishings, including two small marble busts of Athena, remain in the parlor.

Later, about 1880, Wood built a separate studio building just northwest of the house. It too is built in the Carpenter Gothic style but includes influences of Italianate architecture.

References

• Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration for the State of Vermont. Vermont: A guide to the Green Mountain State. Houghton Mifflin: 1937.
• Merrill, Perry H. Montpelier: The Capital City's History: 1780-1976. self-published: 1976.

Gallery

• Athenwood2.JPG

  Athenwood front entrance showing carved ivy on door and cornice

• AthenwoodDetail.JPG

  Athenwood detail of dormer window

• 21Athen01.jpg

  Athenwood, painted green, before its repainting in stone, cream, and gold colors

External links

• http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/travel/centralvermont/cv21.htm