Westside Historic District

Westside is a 40-acre neighborhood about half a mile west of downtown Amherst, made up of modest houses and open farm fields along Baker Street, Snell Street, Hazel Avenue and Northampton Road. It contains 44 contributing buildings and one contributing site, mostly Victorian Eclectic residences from the late 19th century. The oldest, the Hawkins House on Baker Street, dates to about 1869. Nearly half the buildings share a front-gabled, two-story, two- or three-bay form with porches and plain eaves. Other styles include Italianate, Dutch Colonial Revival, English Revival, Craftsman and Cape Cod. The houses were built for farm workers, laborers and small businessmen, and cornfields still occupy the district's core. The district was recognized for its long association with the African American community, which lived there for over a century, and for architecture that reflects 19th-century design, construction and planning. Some residents objected to the boundaries and to how their family histories were treated.