Historic Round Hill Summit Receives 2025 Mayor Thomas M. Menino Legacy Award

Preservation Mass is pleased to announce that the Historic Round Hill Summit in Northampton is the recipient of a 2025 Mayor Thomas M. Menino Legacy Award.

The rehabilitation of the former Clarke School for the Deaf campus involved the conversion of six largely vacant and underutilized historic buildings in a landscaped campus setting to a mix of new residential and commercial office uses. Despite being continuously occupied and utilized for a variety of administrative and educational purposes, each of the six buildings suffered from years of deferred maintenance.

The six former Clarke School buildings that underwent substantial rehabilitations include Gawith Hall (1875), Adams House (1891), Hubbard Hall (1915), the Boiler House (1929), Skinner Hall (1932), and the Engineer’s Cottage (1935).

The initial phase of the project was to involve the rehabilitation of the 1806 Rogers Hall, the oldest building on the campus, connected to the northern end of Hubbard Hall. However, a devastating fire on August 5, 2016 destroyed Rogers Hall and damaged the attached Hubbard Hall with significant smoke and water damaged as a result of efforts to put out the fire. The timing of the fire could not have been worse with Hubbard Hall nearing completion and with new tenants already moving into their new homes. Despite this significant setback, the project proponents carried on with the project by making significant repairs to Hubbard Hall and moving forward with the substantial rehabilitation of the remaining five buildings.