{"nrhp_refnum":"82001894","name":"Church on the Hill","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"Main St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Lenox","county":"Berkshire County","state":"MA","lat":42.36419696100006,"lon":-73.28376408541817,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1982-09-30","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Politics/Government","Architecture","Religion"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A Federal-style Congregational meetinghouse, known as the Church on the Hill, on the west side of Main Street (Route 7A) at the northern end of Lenox Village, Massachusetts, built 1803-1805, with the adjoining six-acre village cemetery.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the church has integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship and association. It gave a growing county seat a larger meeting place and hosted local and national speakers. Its design shows the influence of Asher Benjamin and Charles Bulfinch and reflects the skill of its builder, Benjamin D. Goodrich.","narrative":"Standing at the northern end of Lenox Village, the Church on the Hill is a wood-framed, gable-roofed Congregational meetinghouse built between 1802 and 1805 by joiner Benjamin D. Goodrich of Richmond, Massachusetts. A two-story frontispiece with a Palladian window and a three-stage steeple, based on a plate in Asher Benjamin's Country Builders Assistant, give it a tall, slender profile. It replaced a smaller meetinghouse of about 1775 as Lenox grew into the county seat. The building has changed little outside, though its interior was altered in 1840 and a rear pulpit projection was added in 1880. Speakers who addressed gatherings here included Robert Rantoul and William Ellery Channing. Rev. Samuel Shepard served as minister for more than fifty years. The property also includes the original town cemetery, where gravestones run from the late 18th century to the present, and where Serge Koussevitzky was buried in 1972.","period_of_significance":"1800-1899","architect_builder":"Mr. Benjamin D. Goodrich","architectural_style":"Federal (high-style Federal period)","criteria":["A","B","C"],"status_note":"Condition is marked excellent and the church is occupied for religious use; it has few exterior changes since construction, though its interior was altered in the Victorian era.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:11:57.927702-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/82/7942/63794282/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/82001894.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/82001894/b264f4d4c7-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/82001894/b264f4d4c7-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Daderot.","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Church_on_the_Hill,_Lenox,_Massachusetts.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Daderot.</a>, <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Church_on_the_Hill,_Lenox,_Massachusetts.JPG"},"district":{"nrhp_refnum":"100006987","name":"Lenox Village Historic District","url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/districts/massachusetts/lenox-village-historic-district-100006987/"},"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63794282","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_on_the_Hill_(Lenox,_Massachusetts)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5118081"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/berkshire-county/church-on-the-hill-82001894/"}