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Lenox Academy is a historic school building at 65 Main Street in
Lenox, Massachusetts Lenox is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts. The town is based in Western Massachusetts and part of the Pittsfield Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 5,095 at the 2020 census. Lenox is the site of Shakespeare & Company and T ...
. Built in 1802-03 as a private academy, it was the first secondary school to open in
Berkshire County Berkshire County (pronounced ) is a county on the western edge of the U.S. state of Massachusetts. As of the 2020 census, the population was 129,026. Its largest city and traditional county seat is Pittsfield. The county was founded in ...
. It was subsequently used as the town's high school, and now houses offices. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.


Description and history

The former Lenox Academy building stands on the western edge of the commercial center of Lenox, on the west side of Main Street between Sunset and Cliffwood Streets. It is a two-story wood-frame structure, with a hip roof and clapboarded exterior. The hip roof is truncated and topped at the center by a two-stage belfry. The main facade is five bays wide, with sash windows in the outer bays. The center bay has the main entrance on the ground floor, flanked by wide sidelight windows, with pilasters between windows and door, and on the outside of the entry surround. The pilasters rise to an entablature and projecting cornice with a gable peak at the center. Above the entrance is a
Palladian window Palladian architecture is a European architectural style derived from the work of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580). What is today recognised as Palladian architecture evolved from his concepts of symmetry, perspective and ...
, its side windows also articulated by pilasters and crowned by a corniced entablature. The Federal style building was constructed in 1803 and the school incorporated the same year. The structure house a private academy until 1866. It served as the town's public high school from 1869 to 1879, at which time it was closed for repairs and renovations. In 1888 it again began to serve as the high school, a role it fulfilled until 1908. A private school, the Trinity School, used the property from 1911 until the 1920s, when that school failed. The building then sat vacant and deteriorated, until the defunct academy, under threat of demolition, was turned over to the town for preservation. It now serves as an office building for local civic groups.


See also

* National Register of Historic Places listings in Berkshire County, Massachusetts


References

{{Authority control 1803 establishments in Massachusetts Buildings and structures in Lenox, Massachusetts Defunct private schools in the United States Defunct schools in Massachusetts National Register of Historic Places in Berkshire County, Massachusetts Private schools in Massachusetts School buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts School buildings completed in 1803