The Commission seeks a full-time Archivist to organize and maintain its public archive and create in-person and online programming that promotes the archive and highlights Cambridge history. The archive is founded on an architectural inventory containing survey forms, photographs, and documentation on all 13,000± buildings in the city that is currently being digitized. Other collections include both historic and contemporary materials, such as atlases, papers and manuscripts, books, objects, and ephemera. The photograph collection is estimated to contain more than 60,000 images in all forms. These unique resources are used daily by staff, residents, researchers, and building professionals. The Archivist will oversee the Digital Projects Archivist, who also coordinates the Commission’s social media presence, and supervise relevant interns and volunteers.
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Of course, Queen Anne never actually set foot in Cambridge. But the style of architecture named after her arrived from England in the late 1800’s. The predominant architect of the style in England was Richard Norman Shaw. It was named “Queen Anne” because of a slightly misconceived idea that the style popular during her reign (1704-1714) was conglomeration of renaissance ornament glued to essentially medieval buildings. But, as it turns out, Shaw and others, while interested in medieval architecture, were far more influenced by Elizabethan and Jacobean buildings. Many Americans first saw the Queen Anne style at the Philadelphia Centennial in 1875, where the British government built several houses in that style. It took off in popularity soon after.
Balanced asymmetry, and abundance of building materials and decorative details are the most predominant exterior features of Queen Anne style. Towers, gables, wrap around porches, Palladian windows, and an assortment of decorative shingles, terracotta tiles, decorative brick work, dentils, columns, spindles, bay windows, balustrades, set back entrances, and wood or slate roofs might all be included. The excess of decoration frequently came to be referred to as “gingerbread.” One might almost call the style “hodge-podge,” except that the asymmetrical variations and exaggerated decoration were intentional design decisions.
Clipping of example Queen Anne diagram from “A Field Guide to American Houses” by Virginia McAlester.
The three examples below demonstrate varieties on the theme.
298 HARVARD STREET
Designed in 1888 by Boston architect J. A. Hasty and built for William Haskett Wood, (1846-1912) on the “Old Morse Estate.”
This house includes six varieties of window treatment, two triangular pediments, a large corner tower with conical roof, decorative millwork, and standard and fish-scale shingles. The exterior front façade features a decorative triangle gable on the left with intricate acanthus carving and recessed panels, supported by shingled brackets. This is balanced on the right by a round tower with an “eyebrow-like” segmental dormer. In between on the roof, and slightly set back is a classic gabled dormer with shingled brackets.
Gable detailing. Photo courtesy of The Harder Group.
Across the second floor are several horizontal courses of shingles, followed by many more courses of fish scale shingle. The three second floor windows reflect the decorative styles and millwork of the windows above them. On the left sculpted millwork, the center more classic, and on the right curved lintels as above in the tower, with fish-scale and other fretwork.
The first-floor porch joins a bay window on the left with the round tower window on the right. Four sets of double turned posts supporting the porch roof, and just below the porch gutter runs a decorative panel of millwork. The deeply recessed front door is bordered by two Palladian style windows. The article below (Cambridge Chronicle, November 3, 1888) describes the luxurious interior. And, should you be concerned, “the plumbing will be of the most approved pattern.”
Interior architectural detail at stairhall. Photo courtesy of The Harder Group.
Interior stained glass window with “W” crest for Mr. Wood. Photo courtesy of The Harder Group.
William Haskett Wood was one of those fortunate businessmen whose name matched his profession: lumber dealer. He arrived in Cambridge in 1867 and clerked with lumber dealers Gale, Dudley & Co. Within five years he had formed a partnership with George W. Gale. When this firm dissolved in 1881 Wood went on to buy out Burrage Bros. (wharf at the junction of Broadway, third and Main streets) center of operations. He married Anna M. Dudley. The family lived in the house for approximately 25 years, it passing out of the Wood family at some time between William Wood’s death in 1912 and 1916, when Joseph E. Doherty, Cambridge Water Commissioner lived in the home. In its lifetime this building has been a private home, a Jewish Community Center, the Castle School, (a residential program for troubles children 13-17), and the KLH Day Care Center. In its present incarnation it is a condominium complex.
39 GARFIELD STREET
Built 1885-1886 for Edward Augustus Shepherd (1859-1945)
A much simpler version of Queen Anne Style can be seen in the house at 39 Garfield Street. Although the asymmetry is not as great as 298 Harvard Street, it is evident in the offset entrance and variety of windows and their placement. The peak of the gable is “standard” shingle, but around and below the Palladian windows is fish scale shingle. Other typical decorative features include the cutwork on the eaves, decorative spandrels on the wrap around porch and carving in the tympanum over the front porch stairs. Rosettes (or sunflowers?) featured in the spandrels and tympanum are common decorative details of the style. The skirt below the front rail is also decorative cutwork.
Edward A. Shepherd was a wholesale hay and grain dealer in Boston, and served as both auditor and treasurer of at the Boston Chamber of Commerce. He was married to Helen D. Strean. The family lived in the house for approximately 58 years. His house is surrounded by several other Queen Anne style homes on the street.
33 AGASSIZ STREET
Built 1890 for Horace Phelps Blackman (1833-1917) by Boston architect Eugene L. Clark
The first thing one notices about this house is the use of fieldstone on the first story, “from the fields of Arlington and Lexington.” The usual asymmetry is reflected in the placement a gable with an oriel window on the left, with a tower on the right. Two imposing stone arches surround a window and front door on the first floor. There are a variety of shingle applications: fish scale on the gable and pediment of the gable window, with variegated horizontal courses on the second floor. Tall chimneys with decorative brickwork are another common feature of the style, and one can be seen here on the Lancaster Street side of the house. The side façade also includes a gable with Palladian windows, second floor balcony and a porch. The interior is lavishly finished with mahogany and oak, and described in the newspaper article from 1891 below.
Cambridge Tribune February 14, 1891Interior stairhall, photo courtesy of real estate listing.
Horace P. Blackman was a piano forte and organ maker, first with Chickering of Boston, and subsequently with the Mason & Hamlin Organ & Piano Co. He retired from business in 1892 and served as Alderman in 1893. He became involved in real estate investment. By 1900 he listed himself as “capitalist” of the census that year. He was married to Lydia Lucretian Flint. The Blackman family lived in the house for approximately 32 years.
