The tower is a steel frame structure standing 153 feet (47 m) in height, its tank and steel superstructure enclosed in a stylistically eclectic wooden shell. It is shingled to the top of the enclosed tank, where there is a band of bracketing. Above this are two circular chambers, one to house bells and the other a clock. The tower is covered by a conical roof.[4]
The steel water tank was built in 1900 by the Scituate Water Company, the local municipal water supplier. At the same time, Thomas W. Lawson, a wealthy Boston businessman, was building his "Dreamwold" estate next door. Upset by the view of the utilitarian tank, Lawson negotiated with the company to enclose it.[4] Lawson commissioned the Meneely Bell Foundry of West Troy, New York, to install ten bells at the top of the tower. These bells range in size from three hundred to three thousand pounds. This chime system was originally designed to be played either from the bell room eighty feet above the ground or on the console of the clavier room.
The tower is equipped with an internal sprinkler system, after a similar wooden water tower in East Boston was destroyed by fire in the early 1900s.[5]
^by the Charles Logue Co., source - "Beauty, Strength, Speed: Celebrating 100 Years of Thomas W. Lawson's Dreamwold" by Carol Miles and John J. Galluzzo.
^"Beauty, Strength, Speed: Celebrating 100 Years of Thomas W. Lawson's Dreamwold" by Carol Miles and John J. Galluzzo.
