The EGB – An Italianate Palazzo in the Center of Needham

Emery Grover has been the gateway to Needham for more than 125 years.  It represented the best Needham had to offer, and the progress and aspirations of our town as it entered the Twentieth Century.

On June 11, 2026, the Emery Grover Building renovation was recognized by Preservation Massachusetts with a Robert A. Kuehn Award. The Kuehn Award recognizes projects “that meld collaborative partnerships with creative and cutting-edge ideas for the rehabilitation and active reuse of historic buildings.” Congratulations to the project architects, Bargmann Hendrie + Archetype, all of the Town of Needham offices and committees (the PPBC, the School Department, School Committee, Town Manager’s Office, etc), and the taxpayers of Needham – everyone who was a part of this amazing achievement.

To celebrate, I am re-posting an earlier article about the history of the EGB:

Every time I drive past the newly-renovated Emery Grover Building, I get little lift in my heart—thankful that the town agreed to save and restore this treasure.

Although the building has been the School Department offices for some years, that was not its original purpose. The two pillars beside the entrance steps bear the dates 1865 and 1898, and “Needham High School” is chiseled above the doorway arch. Although it has not filled that function for nearly 100 years, the Emery Grover was indeed Needham’s first High School building. The dates commemorate the original establishment of Needham’s high school (1865) and the year that the building itself was completed (1898).

Discussions in Needham about the need to expand education by establishing a high school first began 1853, but it was not until 1864 that Town Meeting appointed a committee to look into the question. What the committee found was that state law already required each town to provide a high school, and that Needham was some years in default. Therefore, in March 1865 Town Meeting appropriated $2500 to establish two high schools, one in the eastern half of town and one in the western half (now Wellesley).

The new East High School opened in May 1865, in an upstairs room of the Kimball Primary School on the corner of Chestnut Street and School Street, sharing space with the fledgling Free Public Library. In the fall it moved to a rented room in Village Hall, above the General Store and Post Office near the tracks on Great Plain Avenue. In 1868, a committee was chosen by Town Meeting to look into the question of dedicated buildings for the two high schools, but the effort rapidly dwindled.

Finally, in 1896, the question became urgent, as the number of students was much larger than the town’s makeshift arrangements could accommodate. Town Meeting appropriated $30,000 to purchase land and build a school. There was immediate disagreement in town over the school’s location. Residents of the Heights wanted the new high school to be in or at least near the Heights, while residents of the Center wanted it in the Great Plain. The town proposed either replacing and enlarging the Kimball School on School Street to better accommodate both the grammar school and the high school, or adding a separate high school building to the site alongside the Kimball School. Neither faction liked this plan, since the Kimball was already deteriorating and possibly unsafe, and the growing high school classes needed more space.

Despite the disagreement over location, Town Meeting’s high school planning committee moved forward, contracting with architect Charles Brigham for a design of the building. Brigham was an important Boston-area architect, known for numerous private and public buildings, including townhouses on Beacon Hill and the Back Bay, railway stations, churches, and commercial blocks—most notably the State House Annex, the old YMCA Building on Boylston Street, the original Museum of Fine Arts in Copley Square, residential and commercial properties for the Hunnewell family, and several homes for John and Isabella Stewart Gardner.

Brigham’s design was unique for Needham. The town was just making a (slow) transition away from Colonial architectural styles. The new high school was designed in the Italianate style, with arched windows, decorative ironwork, and busts of philosophers over the arched doorways.

However, the ongoing disagreement over the location of the school held the project up. Then in 1897, local businessman John Moseley offered to resolve the location issue by giving the town a plot of land that he owned on Highland Avenue, between May Street and Oakland Avenue next to St. Joseph’s Church. The town accepted the offer, and a new committee was formed to carry the project forward.

This new committee hired another architectural firm, Richard Percival Hood and Edward Payson Whitman, a brief partnership known mainly for Gothic-style school buildings in the Boston area. This led to a breach-of-contract suit by Brigham for $1000, who had not yet been paid for his work and design; the town finally settled with Brigham for about $600. Brigham had a legitimate beef—Whitman and Hood essentially commandeered Brigham’s design. Although they claimed it as their own, a comparison of the Brigham design with the finished building shows that they are substantially the same, with some simplification of the façade by reducing the decorative elements (and, presumably, the cost). When finished, the building was praised as “unexcelled by any other high school building erected in Massachusetts for an equal amount of money.”

The new high school opened in 1898. It served three grades of about fifteen students each, with five classrooms, an auditorium, a laboratory, and a darkroom. However, it rapidly became too small as the student population grew. By 1924, a companion building was built next to it (the former Highland Avenue School), and by 1930, and new building was built on a new site—the current Needham High School.

The old building was renamed the Emery Grover Building in 1935, in honor of a man who was a prominent Massachusetts judge, Town Moderator for twenty years, and a member of the School Committee for twenty years. It served as overflow space for the Highland Avenue School and the High School. In the 1970s, it became the offices of the School Department, as it remains today.

The Emery Grover Building is Needham’s oldest public building and an iconic structure at the gateway to the downtown. It is listed in the Needham Historic Inventory, and the MA Register of Historic Places. It was accepted to the National Register of Historic Places in August 1987 on the basis of its characteristic architecture and the integrity of its original design. (It is noted, by the way, that the National Register document credits both Charles Brigham and Whitman and Hood as the architects).

Time had not been kind to the Emery Grover Building. Structural damage in the 1930s led to the closure of the top floor for public use. The space inside had been partitioned beyond recognition to accommodate the staff needs of a modern school administration. And subsequent aging, deferred maintenance, and ill-advised replacements diminished both the appearance and safety of this once-beautiful structure.

After much debate, the town decided in 2021 that renovation, and not replacement, was in fact the best and most cost-effective option for the EGB. Despite the challenges, the Emery Grover is still usable and useful. Its location is ideal—in the center of town and near the other town offices, facilitating access for the public and the necessary communication between town officials. Its location, just steps from both the bus and the commuter rail, is also important for families who might need to reach the building by public transportation.

The Emery Grover Building has been the gateway to Needham Center for 125 years. It represents the progress and aspirations of our town as it entered the new century. Whatever the disagreements that attended its conception, the town was united in its belief and desire that the building should represent the best Needham had to offer—to its students, to its residents, and to the world. We were proud that it was “unexcelled.” This precious and beautiful building has now been restored, its site landscaped, and its appearance once again something for us to be proud of—a unique historic landmark—an Italianate palazzo in the center of Needham.