 When Herman
Melville bought Arrowhead in 1850, it was already
an old house. Originally built in 1780, the house
was constructed in a Georgian style. In the
1840s, a subsequent owner added federal style
architectural details to the exterior. In two
literary works (“I and My Chimney” and
the dedication to Weeds and Wildings, Chiefly,
with a Rose or Two), Melville himself alludes
to a previous owner having removed the orginal
gambrel roof, replacing it with the roof which
remains today.
Melville,
too, found it necessary to make changes to the
house, adding a piazza (porch), outbuildings, and
an ell to the back, and making numerous small
interior changes. As he wrote to Nathaniel
Hawthorne:
I have been building some
shanties of houses (connected with the old one)
and likewise some shanties of chapters &
essays. I have been ploughing & sowing &
raising & printing & praying, and now
begin to come out upon a less bristling time, and
to enjoy the calm prospect of things from a fair
piazza at the north of the old farmhouse here.
Subsequent
owners have continued the tradition of
alterations. Melville’s own brother added a
front porch, and his descendants changed the back
ell of the house. 20th-century owners added
screened porches, patios, picture windows,
removed the original staircase, and closed off
several fireplaces. When the Berkshire County
Historical Society purchased the house in 1975,
even Melville’s famous piazza had been
removed!
 Since its
purchase of the property, BCHS has raised funds
to complete many restoration projects:
- restoration of the piazza
- restoration of the windows
in the house
- replacement of the asphalt
shingle roof with a cedar shake roof
- repainting the house in its
original colors
- reconstruction of the 1850s
front door section
- rehabilitation of the
original barn
- restoration of
Melville’s study
When
the house was purchased, Melville’s library,
the room where he wrote Moby-Dick, had been
converted to a small bedroom. The fireplace had
been enclosed and a wall built through the room
to create a hallway. BCHS has restored the room
to its Melville-era appearance based on
documentary and physical evidence.
 Despite
all the work that has been done to restore the
house, much more remains to be done. Currently,
BCHS is raising funds to replace the roof on the
Melville barn. The barn was the site of several
meetings between Hawthorne and Melville; the two
men would escape the chaos of the Melville
household by going there for a quiet place to
talk. The barn was restored in the early 1980s,
but needs a new roof to handle the cold and snowy
New England winters.
The
next step will be the completion of an historic
structure report for the main house. In such a
report, expert restoration architects examine the
house and any documentary evidence to determine
exactly what the structure looked like at a given
point in time. The result will be a blueprint for
the complete restoration of Arrowhead to its
Melville-era appearance. This will include
restoration of the famous dining room described
in “I and My Chimney,” the original
staircase/parlor configuration referred to in the
dedication of Weeds and Wildings,
additional restoration work on the piazza after
which Melville’s book The Piazza Tales
was named, and restoration of the family bedrooms
which have been converted to 20th-century
bathrooms.
If
you would like to help restore Herman
Melville’s Arrowhead, please join the
Friends of Herman Melville’s Arrowhead. As a
member, you will receive a newsletter keeping you
informed of restoration progress. Click here to learn about
all the benefits of membership.
Herman Melville's Arrowhead
780 Holmes Road
Pittsfield MA 01201
Telephone (413) 442-1793
Fax (413) 443-1449
info@mobydick.org
owned and operated by
The Berkshire Historical Society
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