Fairhaven High School (1906)
12 Huttleston Avenue (Route 6), Fairhaven
508-979-4052
A member of the 1856 graduating class of the town’s original wooden high school (demolished in the 1920s), Henry H. Rogers chose to build an educational palace to instill in Fairhaven students a sense of the glories associated with learning. He consulted with the top educators of the day while planning the new school.
The Elizabethan-influence design is by Charles Brigham and includes marble floors, oak paneling, stained glass windows and a lovely auditorium with a beamed ceiling and carved wooden gargoyles. The library/media center was once an octagonal gymnasium that contained the first indoor basketball court in an American high school.
The school was built with its own electric generating plant, operated by a custodian who lived in an apartment located on the third floor. The basement level once housed industrial arts rooms and a home economics kitchen and facilities for agricultural studies.
The building was dedicated in 1906 on the 50th anniversary of Rogers’ own graduation from high school. In the 1930s an addition was added to the rear of the main building, connected by an underground passageway. That addition was demolished in the 1990s when the construction of the new wing was underway.
The new wing, completed in the year 2000, added updated teaching and lab facilities and improved the high school handicap accessibility, continuing Rogers’ aim to provide for the town’s future.
Fairhaven High School is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Fairhaven High School was used as a setting for some scenes in the 2023 film The Holdovers, starring Paul Giammati, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, and Dominic Sessa.
Public Tours of Fairhaven High School are given in the early summer: Fairhaven High School Tours.
