Topsfield Town Common District

The Parson Capen House is an historic house in Topsfield, Massachusetts, built in 1683. It has drawn attention as an example of early colonial architecture and because of its well-preserved condition by comparison with other contemporaneous houses.

Topsfield is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 6,569 at the 2020 census. Topsfield is located in the North Shore region of Massachusetts. Part of the town comprises the census-designated place of Topsfield.

Topsfield is a census-designated place (CDP) in the town of Topsfield in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 2,717 at the 2010 census.

WNKC (104.9 FM) is a radio station licensed to Gloucester, Massachusetts, United States. The station is owned by the Educational Media Foundation (EMF) and carries contemporary Christian music through its K-Love network. WNKC operates as the K-Love station for the North Shore region of Greater Boston, serving portions of the market not covered by K-Love's primary Boston-area station, WKVB (107.3 FM).

The French–Andrews House is a historic First Period house in Topsfield, Massachusetts. The oldest elements of the house date to c. 1718, and exhibit construction techniques that are clearly derived from 17th century English methods found in other, older, First Period homes in Massachusetts. It is also notable for some surviving original decorative styling in its downstairs front rooms, and as the subject of early preservation work.When built, the house was a 2+1⁄2-story timber-framed building two rooms wide and one deep, with a central chimney. It was probably built by Joseph Andrews, who purchased the property from John French Sr. In 1919 it underwent a careful restoration under the auspices of preservationist George Francis Dow. Stylistic changes and alterations made in intervening years were removed, and the timber framing was exposed. The in situ First Period decorative elements were preserved, and in some instances replicated in other parts of the house. Dow was also able to apply exterior siding in a manner that was virtually indistinguishable from period siding.The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.

The Zaccheus Gould House is a historic First Period house in Topsfield, Massachusetts. The oldest part of the house was built c. 1670, probably for Zaccheus Gould by John Gould, one of the founders of Topsfield. The house is a 2+1⁄2-story five-bay wood-frame structure. The older portion of the house is on the right of the central chimney; the portion on the left is estimated to have been added c. 1700. The workmanship on the exposed framing elements inside the house suggests that the same workman also worked on the Stephen Foster House.The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990. Because the property was subdivided, it is no longer at its listed address, 73 Prospect Street. The property also contributes to the River Road-Cross Street Historic District, listed in 2005.

Huntwicke, located in Topsfield, Massachusetts, is the former property of William A. Coolidge, a lawyer, financier, and art collector. Encompassing 571 acres (2.31 km2), it includes a 24-room Georgian-style mansion designed by architect Phillip Richardson in 1921 for John L. Saltonstall, other buildings, and landscaping by the firm of Frederick Law Olmsted. The brick mansion includes 14 bedrooms, six fireplaces, parquet floors, hand-carved wood paneling from the 1790 Nathaniel Saltonstall house in Haverhill, and extensive gardens. When Coolidge died in 1992, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology inherited the property. In 2000, MIT and the Essex County Greenbelt Association, a conservation organization and private, non-profit land trust, concluded an agreement to restrict further development, and the former estate, which includes over a mile of land along the Ipswich River, is now one of the largest conservation areas in private hands in Massachusetts. As of 2023 main buildings have suffered extensive vandalism, are structurally unsafe and have been boarded up and condemned.

The Stanley Lake House is a historic First Period house in Topsfield, Massachusetts. It is a 2+1⁄2-story wood-frame house that was built in stages by Mathew Stanley or his heirs between c. 1675 and 1693 and subsequently enlarged by the Lake family. It illustrates a host of building practices over the 17th and 18th centuries. The first Matthew Stanley house was said by Dow to be located northwest of this building. The first portion of this building is the section from the chimney westward. An easterly room was added after and a further addition to the east by the Lakes c. 1750. Matthew Stanley's heirs having removed to the Attleborough Falls area, sold the 70 acre farm property 1710- 1718 to Eleazer Lake. The property also includes a rare First Period barn. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990. In 2005 it was named a contributing property to the River Road-Cross Street Historic District.

The Capt. Joseph Gould House is a historic First Period house in Topsfield, Massachusetts. It is a 2.5-story frame house that is six bays wide and two rooms deep. The oldest part of the house, the eastern three bays, may have been built in the late 17th century; it achieved the present footprint with an addition in the early 18th century of the western bays. The house is distinctive among First Period houses in the region because its original portion was built from the start to be two rooms deep, when most houses of the period started out one room deep and were extended to the rear later.The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.

The River Road–Cross Street Historic District is a rural agricultural historic district in Topsfield, Massachusetts. It is representative of Topsfield's development first as an agricultural community, and later as place for rural retreats. The district, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005, is roughly bounded by River Road, Rowley Bridge Road, Cross Street, Hill Street, and Salem Road, and also includes properties facing Prospect Street and Bradstreet Lane. Much of the district was consolidated under the ownership of William Appleton Coolidge in the 20th century, and bequeathed to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with restrictions to preserve its rural character. MIT sold the donated properties in 2000.The district includes nineteen properties distributed across 450 acres (180 ha) in a rural landscape that includes open farmlands, historic farmsteads, 19th and 20th century estate houses, and scenic views of the Ipswich River, which runs through the center of the district. Some of these lands have been worked since the early colonial days of Topsfield's history. The oldest houses in the district, the Zaccheus Gould House and the Stanley Lake House, date to the late 17th century, and are separately listed on the National Register. There are also several houses dating to the middle and late 18th century, notably two that were built by John Balch on Hill Street.The area began a gradual transformation from a strictly agricultural use to that of a rural retreat area as early as 1807, when the Perkins-Pingree House was built at 49 Salem Road. This high Federal style house is one of the finest of its type in Topsfield. Two important large-scale estates in the area are the Meredith Farm (29 and 41 Cross Street) and the Cummings Estate (82 River Road). The Meredith Farm was developed as a rural retreat by Boston developer J. Morris Meredith, who built an Arts and Crafts style estate house on the property, while preserving the historic Daniel Bixby farmstead (built c. 1800). The Cummings Estate was the work of Margaret Cummings, who purchased land that had long been in the hands of the Lake family, early Topsfield settlers, in the early 20th century. Her brother, architect Charles K. Cummings, designed a collection of Tudor Revival buildings for the estate, and it was landscaped to designs by Arthur Shurcliff, who had studied landscape design with the Olmsted Brothers.

The Essex National Heritage Area is a National Heritage Area composed of all of Essex County, Massachusetts. It is overseen by the Essex National Heritage Commission (ENHC), a non-profit organization based in Salem, Massachusetts. The commission promotes the cultural heritage with public and private partnerships and with the National Park Service by developing programs that enhance, preserve and encourage regional awareness of the area's unique historic, cultural and natural resources.

The Stephen Foster House is a historic house in a rural area of Topsfield, Massachusetts. It is a rare instance of a First Period house (built c. 1690) in which its original footprint is still readily discernible, and has not been obscured by subsequent modifications. The only immediately overt exterior indication of the house's great age is the steep pitch of its roof. It is a 2+1⁄2-story wooden house framed with massive oak timbers. It is a "single cell" house, only three asymmetrically placed window bays wide and one room deep, with a chimney on the left side. Its exterior was complete restyled in a 19th-century vernacular style.The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.