Melrose Spotlight: the Second Empire building style

Following the Civil War, Melrose housebuilders adopted a style that was a distinctly modern marriage of form and function. The Second Empire style was the signature look of the great urban renewal project that was Baron Haussmann’s Paris. Here was a style that was not a revival of some older form, but was based on contemporary aesthetics and needs.

To identify such homes, you need look to only one feature: the roof. These are mansard roofs, which are four-sided hipped roofs with two distinct slopes, nearly flat on top and then becoming quite steep on the approach to the walls, allowing for fenestration on all sides. Gone was the dark, stuffy attic that became intolerably hot in the summer. All of those windows in the mansard roof meant sunlight and cross breezes and the potential for adding extra bedrooms or a separate apartment. In an era of rising population, the Second Empire style allowed for denser residential spaces.

Take, for example, 147 West Wyoming Avenue. With its ornate brackets, dentil cornice, and wide eaves at the roofline, it is in some respects not too different from an Italianate house. Yet Classical references are missing, as our eyes meet a series of rectangles in contrasting lengths and widths, with diminishing fenestration giving the house the vertical feel of a genteel urban townhouse. With three full floors of living space, this house today contains four apartments.

We find more elegant Second Empire housing on Vine Street. Number 3 Vine, with its finely-wrought dormers, cornice, and brackets, began as a single-family home, but was converted into a two-family structure. Looking down the street, its twin at 9 Vine underwent the same transformation, whereas 13-15 Vine went from a two-family home to a twelve-apartment building.

The most ambitious privately owned Second Empire structure in Melrose was undoubtedly the Waverly Building. Constructed in 1866, it was the tallest inhabited building in 19^th century Melrose, and today contains 30 apartments and 6 commercial spaces. Set next to the railroad depot, it boldly announced to passing travelers that Melrose was an urbane, forward-thinking community that was building for the future.