postcard

University Green Area Heritage Study

Historic Burlington Research Project - HP 206

 

The Bittersweet Garage


The Bittersweet garage is wood frame construction and has a forward facing gable roof. The front facade is composed of three separate pairs of hinged wooden paneled doors. There are eight equal sized panes of glass in each door on the upper half, and four vertical wooden panels on the lower half. According to the City of Burlington, Vermont Assessor's Property Database website, the garage is 540 square feet of "unfinished" space.(1)

The garage does not appear on insurance maps in 1919 but is apparent on the same company's map in 1926. Accordingly, it can be estimated that the building was built between 1919 and 1926.(2) During this period the property was inhabited by a local Burlington couple, the Laverys, and then the Zeta Chi organization of the University of Vermont.(3) The fact that it was built during this period could be relevant to trends in commercialism as a result of the rising middle class in the United States post WWI. It is reasonable to expect that people simply had more things at this time, and automobile ownership was growing more prevalent, therefore, so was the need for somewhere to put it all. In this regard, the building is important in demonstrating how the evolution of building development directly relates to the evolution of our society.

Text and image by Christine Prevolos, 2011

(1)Assessor’s Property Database for Burlington Vermont, (City of Burlington, VT: 2010) http://www.ci.burlington.vt.us/assessor/search/ (accesses October 27, 2011).

(2)Sanborn Fire Insurance Company, Sanborn Fire Insurance Map; Burlington 1919 ( New York: Sanborn Fire Insurance Company, 1919), 34. / Sanborn Fire Insurance Company, Sanborn Fire Insurance Map; Burlington 1926 ( New York: Sanborn Fire Insurance Company, 1926), 32.

(3)H. A. Manning Company, Manning’s Burlington and Winooski (Vermont) Directory (Greenfield, MA: H.A. Manning Company, 1921), 453. / H. A. Manning Company, Manning’s Burlington and Winooski (Vermont) Directory (Greenfield, MA: H.A. Manning Company, 1922), 436.