American Houses: Cambridge, Mass. The Brattle Street neighborhood

Sunny blue sky day and I finally took an hour off to bike around with the camera, shooting houses that interested me. They are all large in the Brattle Street neighborhood in West Cambridge. Large house in Cambridge used to mean "tenured Harvard professor" but usually these days that implies a much smaller house, in Belmont. I'm thinking many of the Brattle Street houses are occupied by the new elite of Cambridge, the execs and founders of the IT and other technology companies that dominate Kendall Square and Area 4 as well as the older generation from out on Route 128.  The oldest houses like the yellow one above are pretty much plain New England boxes, most dating from the 18th century. Plain and simple equalled virtue in the New England mentality--it was also cheaper to build--though square & wooden doesn't seem an ideal design solution for a climate that can be snowy and cold. The mansard roofs, as immediately below, were popular late 19th century.

 

 

 This row of early 20th c. brick houses on Sparks Street really stands out in the neighborhood which is mostly big deatched houses sheathed in clapboard. This rown which is very handsome looks like it could belong in the Back Bay, except the bay Bay houses always have bowes window--as do the houses on Beacon Hill. No, what this row really reminds me of our similar rows in Lower Westmount, Montreal.

Robert Frost lived here. Good fences make good neighbors but he was sharing a wall with his names; that immediate area I think Sparks Street is lined with twofers, conjoined houses.

 Arts & Crafts in a big way.