Legg, John, House

Built in 1896 at 5 Claremont Street in Worcester, this Queen Anne style house was designed by architect Stephen Earle for John Legg, a woolen manufacturer. It is a two-and-a-half-story frame building with an asymmetrical plan, set above the street and reached by two flights of granite stairs. Notable features include a three-sided bay window, a gambrel dormer with a Palladian window, a fanlighted entry, Ionic porches, a pedimented oriel window and elaborate stained glass in the stair hall. A rock-faced granite retaining wall runs along the street frontage. Legg, born in 1851, came from a family of British weavers and learned woolen manufacturing in Rhode Island. After his father's death in 1890 he became general manager of the Worcester Mills, which grew into one of the city's largest textile producers with more than 300 workers. Legg lived in the house from 1896 to 1912, then moved to Lenox, a new residential park on the city's west side. The house later served as an institutional residence.