May 1, 2022
The National Register of Historic Places includes at least six structures designed by William Pitt Wentworth in the late 19th century, including, of course, what we know as Medfield State Hospital. Although there are thousands of photos of the hospital buildings, there appears to be no photo of Wentworth anywhere.
What we do have, however, is Wentworth’s 1892 sketch: “Bird’s Eye View, Proposed Asylum for Chronic Insane, Medfield, Mass., W. P. Wentworth, Arch’t, Boston, Mass.” This turned out to be the last major project of Wentworth’s career.
Previous hospitals had been designed according to the Kirkbride Plan, which characteristically had one large central building, with corridors connecting sometimes dozens of subordinate buildings, so one could walk a multi-acre complex without stepping outdoors.
Wentworth’s design used a cottage plan, with separate buildings around a quad, suggesting a New England town common. These progressively-designed buildings were built to impress but at the same time to reflect concern for the aesthetic well-being of those who lived and worked there.
The very layout of the grounds and buildings of the Medfield State Hospital was a departure from institutions built for similar purposes. The Medfield structures boasted columns, arched windows, porticos and even a small turret; patterns in the brickwork were an important element, and symmetry was visible everywhere.
William Pitt Wentworth was born in the small town of Rockingham, Vermont, on April 23, 1837, the son of Asa Wentworth and his wife Lucy Warren. In 1868 Wentworth married Caroline Frances Williams in Rockingham. Considering that the population of that town was 5,282 in 2010, one can only imagine its bucolic character 185 years earlier.
In what must have been an exciting, if not downright disorienting, passage, Wentworth left Rockingham to study architecture in New York.
In 1870 he moved to Boston and began practicing there. He designed homes in the newly-filled-in Back Bay, and he eventually became known as an architect of churches and hospitals, many of which are listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
Wentworth’s range was quite far-reaching, having designed churches in Norfolk, Virginia; Jamestown, New York; Watertown, New York; Ord, Nebraska; Leadville, Colorado and myriad other locations. Symmetry, so apparent at the Medfield State Hospital, is seen in these buildings. Despite the difference in design, many of the characteristics used in Medfield are apparent here.
William Pitt Wentworth died in Newton, Massachusetts, in 1896, days shy of his 59th birthday. He is buried in Immanuel Cemetery in Bellows Falls, Vermont.
Here’s a new-to-us website with dozens of excellent Medfield State Hospital photos.