82 State Street, Alden Little, 1844, Swiss Chalet Style

This Swiss Chalet style was built 1844 for Alden Little. Little, who owned a livery stable, lived there only a year and rented the property thereafter. The house was eventually purchased by John Avery Parker, who leased it to his son-in-law William H. Allen. Allen was a tailor, draper, and dry-goods merchant by trade but became Collector of Customs to the Port of New Bedford and He later became the ticket agent for the New Bedford and Taunton Railroad. Allen was a popular resident of the city and became Representative to the Massachusetts General Court later in life and lived to the age of 97.

This house was constructed in the usual Swiss Chalet style popularized in the pattern books of Andrew Downing Jackson such as The Architecture of County Houses. Andrew Jackson Downing’s popular handbook Cottage Residences (1842) provided the drawing for the house at 82 State Street One of the features of this style is the broad gable faced with deeply overhanging eaves and decorative bargeboards.