14 RIVER RD
architectural description
Style: Vernacular Colonial Rev.
Architectural significance: This two-story residence was built as a barn and moved to its present site in the 1920s, when it took on its paired 6/1 windows and center entrance. Its most distinctive, and at first glance puzzling feature, is its shallow pitched roof, which it retains from its period of use as a barn. On its east end, an enclosed frame porch extends across the facade.
historical narrative
Historical significance: Henry P. Lannan (c. 1859 - 1929) acquired the property in 1904 from one Thomas J. McEneaney. Lannan was a butcher, and may have built two barns and a carriage shed further up the hillside. Lannan moved to Lawrence, however, about 1916. Paul and Helen Fortuna recalled that for a number of years, Lannan would come out to River Road each Sunday to get his buggy to take his wife to church. Probably in 1921 (the date the assessor's office gives for the house), Lannan moved one of the barns to the roadside, converting it to the present residence. The Fortunas remember that Lannan rented it to a group of Italians in the 1920s, who set up a still in the house, finally busted up by the police. Henry's son George sold the property in 1931 to Alcide Jean, who two years later sold it to a 34-year old electrical maintenance engineer in Lawrence's Arlington Mill, Ernest Fieldhouse. Fieldhouse retired to Maine in 1963, selling the property to its present owners, Henry and Anastasia Richardson.
bibliography/references
Interview with Henry V. Richardson (14 River Road), and Paul and Helen Fortuna (20 River Road), 24 Oct. 1987.
Andover Street Directories. Andover Historical Society.
Essex County Registry of Deeds, Lawrence.
inventory data
| Place: | |
| Historic District: | Not Applicable |
| Address: | 14 river rd |
| Historic Name: | |
| Present Use: | Residence |
| Original Use: | Barn |
| Date of Construction: | c. 1900 |
| Source: | Visual estimate |
| Style/Form: | Other |
| Architect/Builder: | |
| Foundation: | |
| Wall/Trim: | Asbestos shingles |
| Roof: | |
| Outbuildings / Secondary Structures | |
| Major Alterations: | Conversion to residence (1921) |
| Condition: | good |
| Moved: | 1921 |
| Demolished: | |
| Acreage: | less than one acre |
| Setting: | close to busy road; woods and hillside in rear |
| MHC inventory number: | |
| Recorded by: | Peter H. Stott; Org.:BU OPA |
| Organization: | |
| Date: | 25 Oct 1987 |
other historic buildings
- on river rd
- in Not Applicable
- with architectural style Other
18 Carisbrooke Street
