73 (formerly 71-77) Main Street, Blanchard Block, 1883-84 - Montpelier Historic District - Montpelier, Vermont
Posted by: 
elyob
N 44° 15.593 W 072° 34.525
18T E 693540 N 4903596
The building is near the southeast corner of State and Main.
Waymark Code: WM11FW7
Location: Vermont, United States
Date Posted: 10/16/2019
Views: 3
This Italianate style building was built in 1883-1884 by Asa Blanchard as the Blanchard Opera House. George H. Guernsey of Montpelier was the architect. This is a very good example of late 19th century commercial block
architecture. According to the Sanborn Fire Insurance maps, between the 1909 and 1915 maps, the opera house was removed and floors inserted for tenements and a large skylight was installed.
Brick with yellow brick and granite trim, four stories, flat roof. The building is articulated in five bays, each containing three windows, except for the central entrance bay. All the upper windows have two-over-two light replacement sash. The entrance bay consists of a two-story round-headed arch opening containing double leaf doors flanked by sidelights and surmounted by a large round-headed transom light. At the third floor level are paired windows with a segmental corbelled head with a granite keystone. The fourth floor paired window has a round-headed corbelled head with a granite keystone. The other windows in the block are segmentally arched at the second and third floor and round-headed at the fourth floor and all have granite keystones. The block is visually tied together at the third story window sill level by a horizontal corbelled band. The building has an arcaded corbelled frieze and a pressed tin cornice with a centrally located pediment saying “1884, Blanchard.” The five ground floor stores between brick piers have centered recessed entries with canted glass sides and black Carrera glass bases.
According to building permit records, there was a rear stair tower added to 65-73 Main Street incorporating both this and #139 in 1979.
The text above is taken from the National Register of Historic Places continuation sheet cited below. A plaque on the exterior wall describes visits to this site by President Monroe in 1817 and Marquis de Lafayette in 1825. They visited an earlier building known as the Caldwell House. It is strange that the earlier building is not mentioned above.