Benjamin HouseNorth Palm Beach, FL |
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The Benjamin School House, ca. 1924, was originally a guest house built by a local Dutch immigrant carpenter. The one-story building features an L-shaped plan with hipped and gable metal roof, clapboard siding, an arched 8/1 triple casement window on the main elevation, a metal casement window and an assortment of built-in pecky-cypress furniture, including a vanity, dinette and shelving.
Forty years ago, the site was the founding of the Private School, now known as The Benjamin School. Located in the Village of North Palm Beach, there are very few historic resources like this one that are left from its agricultural beginnings. The restoration of this structure provides an opportunity to make students aware of local history as well as provide an immediate link to the founding of the Benjamin School and its founder Mr. Marshall Benjamin.
In the late 1950s, Marshall Benjamin purchased the property and opened the private school to the first Kindergarten class of 24 students. Mr. Benjamin removed an interior-dividing wall that had separated the space into living and sleeping quarters to make classroom space. The interior built-in furniture was adapted to the needs of the school; the dinette became a reading nook and the vanity was used as a desk. The school grew rapidly, adding a classroom each year, including adapting the main house and constructing a connection between the main and guest houses. The campus serves over 1,000 students.
Song + Associates provided grant application, all planning, architectural and interior design services for the renovation of the original school house. The renovation of the 600-SF secondary dwelling-turned-classroom building is now used as the Headmaster’s office. Entering the newly refurbished building, new students are welcomed to The Benjamin School in the same room that Mr. Benjamin taught his first Kindergarten class, and many classes thereafter, to read.