Ames Hill/Crescent Hill District

Ames Hill and Crescent Hill form a wooded, heavily landscaped residential enclave on two adjoining hills southwest of downtown Springfield, Massachusetts. Roughly 21 acres along Maple, Central, Mill and Pine Streets and Crescent Hill hold some thirty large houses built between 1826 and 1930. Paper manufacturer David Ames, Sr. opened this section of Maple Street in 1812 to reach his mill on the Mill River, and later commissioned a wedding house here for his son. Industrialists, bankers, lawyers and merchants then built homes in styles ranging from Italianate and Stick Style to Queen Anne, Shingle Style, Colonial Revival and Tudor. Notable examples include the Walter Wesson House of 1882 and the Julius Appleton House of 1886. Local builders Chauncey Shepard and Simon Sanborn, architect Henry Sykes and designers Eugene Gardner and Max Westhoff worked here. The district was listed for having one of Springfield's finest groupings of domestic architecture.