Dr. Robert Brown will close out the lecture series with his lecture on Lost Homes of Westfield. He was also the very first lecturer of the series with his talk on the past major birthday celebrations of Westfield.
WESTFIELD- The final lecture of the Westfield 350 Historical Lecture Series will take place Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at the First Congregational Church, where local historian Dr. Robert Brown will give a talk on the lost historical homes of Westfield.
Brown, who is a Professor Emeritus at Westfield State University, will focus his lecture on large, mansion sized homes that once existed in the city and compare them to what occupies their former space in 2019. His research on the matter goes back two decades, and it sort of began by accident.
“For over 20 years I have been working with the archive collection at the library,” said Brown, “I had found an interesting photo and tried to learn who or what it was. Along the way I discovered some pictures of spectacular homes.”
Through his research, Brown discovered where the largest home is Westfield’s history was once located. When it existed, it boasted over 30 rooms and was easily classified as a mansion. Today, there stands a Big Y grocery store plaza in its former place on Broad Street.
Part of Brown’s research and lecture includes identifying how many such homes are left in Westfield and which century they were built in. By his current knowledge, there are many houses left from the 1800s, quite a few remaining from the 1700s, but just one that remains from the 1600s. Brown’s lecture will also discuss the reasoning for the demise for some of the buildings.
“A few had burned down, and others simply deteriorated,” said Brown, “Some of the ones that had been built in the 1700s were deteriorated heavily by the 20th century.”
In a few cases, Brown added, the houses had been torn down on purpose. In some cases, it was because nobody wanted them. In others, the difficulty heating and maintaining the large buildings became expensive and tedious enough that it was considered not worth having. One of Brown’s goals in his research and lectures is to help generate interest in keeping the remaining large, older homes in Westfield around.
“What I’m trying to do is show people what has been lost in hopes that there will be greater interest in preserving what’s left,” said Brown.
As it has been for the entirety of the lecture series, Brown’s lecture is free for all to attend.
