This magnificent home was built in 1884 by Henry R.
Wolcott and Colorado Senator Edward O. Wolcott for their father, Rev.
Samuel Wolcott. In 1889 it was sold to Edward Spaulding Brewer, who was a
prominent Springfield area businessman, three-term chairman of the
Longmeadow Board of Selectmen and two-term Massachusetts state
legislator. In 1922 Mr. Brewer sold the home to Mrs. Wilbur F. Young,
wife of the inventor of the horse (and later human) liniment Absorbine,
Jr.
The house was built in Colonial Revival style, with gambrel
roof, Palladian window, and wooden quoins. At one point in its history the
exterior was covered with brown shingles. Inside it has massive rooms,
including two formal dining rooms. The rear wing includes a billiard room
on the third floor. During the Depression iron grids were added to the
windows to armor the house. A fortune was then stored in the house as so
many financial institutions had experienced ruin following the Crash in
1929. The carriage house behind is now a private residence. It was
extensively renovated several years ago and became the home, for a time,
of popular author Anita Shreve.
