120 State Street, Edward Dewey House

120 State Street, Edward Dewey House

Carnahan, Paul

When the State of Vermont needed to build more office space in the late 1930s, it looked no further than across the street from the State House. That stretch of street was occupied by four residential buildings that would have to be removed to make room for the large Art Deco/Modernist building that the Burlington architect William Freeman had designed. Three of the structures were demolished but one, the impressive brick Queen-Anne house designed by Montpelier architect and mayor George Guernsey for Edward Dewey, was moved down the street to 128 State Street (see “Then and Now,” The Bridge, August 3, 2022) in 1948. Dewey, the son of National Life founder Julius Dewey, had built his new home on the site of his family’s home in 1889 and moved the old house to 144 State Street, where it stood until it was demolished in 1969. The office building is decorated with the names of Vermont’s counties inscribed on the frieze between the fourth and fifth floors and with a bias relief of Ceres on the front doors, looking across the street at the statue of Ceres on top of the State House.

1889; 1940; 2022

Vermont Historical Society Picture Collection (F-TO-Montpelier, State Street Winooski Side)

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Leahy Library, Vermont Historical Society, 60 Washington Street, Suite 1, Barre, Vermont 05641