{"nrhp_refnum":"80000581","name":"Merrill Double House","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"18-20 West St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Worcester","county":"Worcester County","state":"MA","lat":42.26500530100003,"lon":-71.80957366299998,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1980-03-05","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["state","local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A two-and-one-half-story brick double house at 18-20 West Street in Worcester, Massachusetts, built around 1879 and still used as residences. The architect is unknown.","why_significant":"The form calls it an excellent, unaltered local example of Victorian Gothic architecture. Its cast-stone (concrete) trim on lintels, sills and foundation facings is extremely unusual, and it is the earliest building with concrete trim identified in Worcester. It was also home to William A. Denholm, founder of the Boston Store, later the city's largest department store.","narrative":"Built around 1879 at 18-20 West Street in Worcester, this brick double house is arranged symmetrically around a center party wall. It rises two and one-half stories and shows Victorian Gothic character through paired entries under a porch with foliate-capital columns, flanking bay windows, steep bargeboarded gables and jerkinhead dormers. Side bays climb to a wood-sheathed third story under steep roofs. Its most unusual feature is the cast-stone trim, used for window lintels, sills and foundation facings. Worcester makers were producing such concrete trim in the 1870s, but this is the earliest building with it that has been identified. The heirs of Enoch Merrill, a variety-store owner whose own home once occupied the site, apparently built the house as an investment. Its first occupant at number 18 was William A. Denholm, a dry-goods merchant who founded the Boston Store, later the city's largest department store. The house remains unaltered and in residential use, and it resembles several frame doubles of the early 1880s on the West Side.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Victorian Gothic","criteria":[],"status_note":"Present use is residential; the form describes the building as unaltered and not moved.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:11:54.143822-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/69/7928/63792869/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/80000581.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/80000581/18ba37570e-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/80000581/18ba37570e-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY 3.0","author":"John Phelan","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Merrill_Double_House,_Worcester_MA.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">John Phelan</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Merrill_Double_House,_Worcester_MA.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63792869","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrill_Double_House","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6820184"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/worcester-county/merrill-double-house-80000581/"}