41, 43, and 45 Lancaster Street
41 Lancaster Street
A fast moving fire that burned a pair of late Victorian houses at 43 and 45 Lancaster Street in January of 2008 left a gaping hole in the streetscape, giving it a snaggle-toothed look. The former house sites are now vacant lots, flanked by houses at 41 Lancaster Street and 21 Institute Road, which are of similar date and character to the ones that were lost.
The fire has robbed the large surviving houses of their historic setting and changed the character of this section of Lancaster Street. Even more worrying is the fact that the now-vacant lots invite being paved over as parking lots or being built up with buildings unsympathetic to neighboring houses, cultural institutions, and historic sites. This threat is of special concern since these lots are located catty-cornered to the Worcester Art Museum and directly opposite two of the city’s most significant historic buildings, the Salisbury Mansion (1772) and the Salisbury House (1838).
This block of Lancaster Street is part of a group of distinctive late-19th century houses centered around the corner of Institute Road and Lancaster Street, known as the Institute Road Historic Area, which was included Worcester Comprehensive Historical Survey conducted by Preservation Worcester in 1977.
Lancaster Street was put through on the land of Stephen Salisbury III in the 1880’s when he subdivided the acreage surrounding his home, the Salisbury House, as a high-end residential subdivision. In this subdivision, bounded by Lancaster and Boynton Streets on the east and west and by Salisbury and Highland Streets on the north and south, large, architect-designed houses were built for the city’s well-to-do. Construction of substantial homes in this area continued on through the first three decades of the 20th century. Feeling the pinch of nearby institutions (such as Worcester Polytechnic Institute, the Worcester Art Museum, and the First Lutheran Church) and of increased traffic on Lancaster Street, most of the single-family houses in Salisbury’s subdivision have been subdivided into apartments. They are no longer the homes of the wealthy. However, the substantial and stylish architecture of these buildings still provides an important setting for Worcester’s cultural district. The problem of finding suitable infill for the missing houses on Lancaster Street exemplifies the need for thoughtful planning and the adoption of design review guidelines for new construction in historic sections of the city.