Selecting appropriate exterior paint colors for historic buildings can be one of the most daunting decisions a building owner can face—especially when balancing personal taste with architectural integrity and regulatory standards. Our publication Painting Historic Exteriors: Colors, Application, and Regulation offers a clear, authoritative framework for maintaining the character and integrity of historic residential architecture.
🎨 This comprehensive guide provides:
• Expert recommendations for selecting historically appropriate paint colors by architectural style • Practical advice on paint application and maintenance for long-term preservation • Insight into regulatory considerations within historic districts • Case studies from Cambridge showcasing exemplary restorations
🏠 This informative publication is designed for:
• Architects, contractors, and homeowners involved in restoration work • Local historic district commissioners • Preservation planning staff and municipal officials • Historical societies and house museum staff
341 Columbia St., 1886 Green with tan trim and moss green accents
Painting season begins in late spring, so now is the perfect time to get a head start on planning your next paint project. Order your copy of Painting Historic Exteriors for just $10 by clicking here or stop by our office at 831 Mass Ave in Central Square.
113 Brattle St., 1887 Deep red with taupe trim and deep olive green shutters All colors mixed in commercially available paints to match original colors found through paint analysis
If you’d rather leave it to the professionals, the Cambridge Historical Commission offers paint consultations for buildings in Cambridge and beyond. For questions, email our office at histcomm@cambridgema.gov.
William Bruce “Bill” King, of Cambridge, Needham, and Phillipston, MA, passed away on July 22, 2025, at age 93, after a brief illness. Beloved and respected by all who knew him, Bill charmed family, friends, and colleagues with bonhomie, long stories, good humor, curiosity, and keen intelligence. He was dedicated to his family, to the law firm where he spent his entire professional career, and to civic engagement in every community he joined.
Above, Bill King at Harvard’s Memorial Hall in 2000
Bill was appointed to the Cambridge Historical Commission in 1973 and served as chair from 1986 until he retired in 2017. By a conservative calculation, Bill attended almost 500 commission meetings and chaired about 350 of them. He was notable for his judicious temperament, calm demeanor, and willingness to be amused at the occasional absurdities of public life. He displayed a conspicuous tolerance of public discourse, with the result that applicants and members of the public generally went away feeling respected even if their views did not carry the day. Among many other accomplishments, Bill contributed to several legislative initiatives that expanded the role of historic preservation in Cambridge and, by example, throughout the Commonwealth.
We thank Bill for his decades of public service and friendship.
We have recently processed a collection donated last year by William B. King and his daughter, Rachel King. Its finding aid is now available on ArchivesSpace. Currently, the Historical Commission is offering limited research assistance. Please see our main webpage for the most up-to-date information. If you would like to research this or any other collections, please email us at chcarchives@cambridgema.gov.
The William B. King Collection contains textual records collected by William B. King related to his contributions to local Cambridge organizations, including Harvard Law School, Cambridge Civic Association, Buckingham Browne & Nichols School, and the Cambridge Historical Commission. It also holds external reports, newsletters, maps, and ads from other local institutions as well as the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The collection consists of approximately 100 folders of written records ranging from official typed forms, handwritten notes, draft documents, and printed publications.
King at Memorial Hall, 2000, CHC photo
A bit of background on Mr. King: he was born in Boston in 1932; he married the Cambridge native Sheila Malone in 1955, and the couple would go on to participate in civic and social activities in Cambridge. For more information on Sheila M. King, see her obituary here. They had three children, Stephen in 1960, Rachel in 1963, and Christopher in 1965.
After graduating from Harvard College in 1954, King received his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1959. After passing the bar that same year, he became an associate and in 1968 partner at Goodwin, Procter & Hoar, a position he held through 1999.
Harvard University 1954 Class Album
More pertinent to this collection, King served in many positions with the Cambridge Civic Association (CCA), including advisor, director, vice president, and finally president between 1965 and 1966. The CCA was a merger among the Committee for Plan E, the Cambridge Citizens Committee, and the Cambridge Taxpayers Association in 1945. Joining the organization in the 1960s, King participated in the “Save Magazine Beach” petition to defend a recreation and playground area from a planned highway extension along Memorial Drive.
In 1970 King became a trustee of the Buckingham School, an independent school in Cambridge that was coed through 6th grade and all-girls through 12th grade. He was actively involved in its 1974 merger with the Browne & Nichols School, an all-boys independent school (grades 7 through 12).
King at the Boys & Girls Club, 2015, holding the just-published oral history collection, We Are the Port, recollections of Area 4/The Port.
In 1973 King was appointed the lawyer member of the Cambridge Historical Commission and in 1986 became its chair. During his time at the Commission, he advocated for and helped develop operating procedures under Cambridge’s two precedent-setting, home-rule ordinances relating to Demolition Delay and the designation of Neighborhood Conservation Districts (NCD) and Local Landmarks. He sat on the city’s first NCD study committee that eventually led to the establishment of the Mid-Cambridge NCD and served on study committees establishing and/or revising the Avon Hill, Half Crown-Marsh, and Harvard Square Conservation Districts. In 2017, King retired from his Commission position.
The William B. King Collection is divided into six series comprising correspondence, drafts, legal and financial statements, memos, personal notes, newsletters, maps, reports, articles, and a recipe. The series are as follows: Series I: Harvard Law School; Series II: Cambridge Civic Association; Series III: Buckingham Browne & Nichols School; Series IV: Cambridge Historical Commission; Series V: External correspondence, publications, materials; Series VI: Personal.
It must be time for … Torn Down Tuesday! Today’s feature is a two-story garage that once stood at 71 Amherst Street.
Drawing of 71 Amherst by Francis W. Wilson. MIT.
Completed in 1909 for Fred Smith, the utilitarian structure was built of poured-in-place reinforced concrete. The design included a long span for the upper floor combined with a low-pitched roof carried by metal trusses. The building was set at an oblique angle to the street, and the second floor was reached by a concrete ramp leading up to a door large enough to admit automobiles and trucks.
The Cambridge Auto Body Shop as featured in the Cambridge Tribune, 3 July 1925
The building was later occupied by the Daggett Chocolate Company, which commissioned an addition in 1947. When this addition was demolished in 1981, much of the original design was again visible. The building was purchased from the Daggett Trust by MIT in 1961 and renamed Building E20. In 1972-73 the first floor was reconfigured by the architect Bernard Awtry to accommodate the institute’s newly established Department of Psychology. By that time the industrial sash bays had been largely filled in by concrete block panels pierced by small punched windows.
71 Amherst Street photographed by Robert Rettig, May 1969
The Frederick Smith Garage at 71 Amherst Street was of a typical, but relatively minor, use in the newly developed Cambridge riverfront lands. As the automobile became popular in the first decade of the 20th century, residents of the densely settled areas of Boston’s Beacon Hill and Back Bay needed storage and service facilities that could not be provided in their neighborhoods. Just as Bostonian’s stored their household goods at the Metropolitan Storage Warehouse on Massachusetts Avenue, so they brought their automobiles to be serviced in the Cambridge garages of Mr. Smith and others.
Detail of 1916 Cambridge Bromley Atlas showing Fred S. Smith’s garage.
This building and 79 Amherst Street (Building E10) were demolished in 2000 and replaced by an addition to the neighboring MIT Media Lab.
Sources: CHC demolition memo, cases D-811 and D-812 MIT report: Proposed Demolition of Buildings E10 and E20
Mount Auburn Cemetery, the first rural cemetery in the United States, is credited as the beginning of the American public parks and gardens movement. Dedicated in 1831 and marked with classical monuments in a rolling landscaped terrain, Mount Auburn Cemetery marked a distinct break with Colonial-era burying grounds and church-affiliated graveyards. The appearance of this type of landscape coincides with the rising popularity of the term “cemetery,” derived from the Greek word for “a sleeping place,” instead of graveyard. The cemetery, shared by Cambridge and Watertown, has evolved greatly in its nearly 200 years but remains one of the most picturesque landscapes in the country.
General view of Mount Auburn Cemetery with monuments, gravestones, and rolling topography.
When strolling Mount Auburn Cemetery, some monuments and funerary art stand out more than others. Attentive visitors may notice numerous sculptures of dogs that seem to watch over their owner’s graves; a contrast to the fact that dogs, living or deceased, are not allowed onto the cemetery’s grounds. These types of sculpture are known as psychopomps whose primary function is to escort souls to the afterlife. Historically, dogs have symbolized guidance, protection, loyalty, and unconditional love, all important roles for a psychopomp.
Here, we will give a brief history of some of the dogs found in Mount Auburn Cemetery.
Perkins Monument Dog
The Perkins Family Tomb, on Central Avenue at Mount Auburn Cemetery, is guarded by this marble dog. The monument commemorates Thomas Handasyd Perkins (1764-1854), “the Merchant Prince” of the China trade. In 1843 Perkins visited the Italian studio of Horatio Greenough (1805-1852), considered America’s first professional sculptor and one of the first to receive a national commission, and commissioned him to carve Perkins’s Newfoundland dog in Florentine marble. The dog seems to have been installed at the family tomb at Mount Auburn a year later. As a young man Thomas Perkinswas a slave trader in Haiti, a maritime fur trader who transported furs from the American Northwest for trade in China, and then a major smuggler of Turkish opium into China. Perkins invested in textiles and granite quarries. Among his many philanthropic works, he gave his Boston residence to the Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind, which was renamed the Perkins School for the Blind in his honor. Today, however, we can contextualize the multiple layers of Perkins’s life story, including an examination of how he acquired his wealth. Perkins was originally interred at St. Paul’s Cathedral in Boston; he was removed to the family tomb at Mount Auburn in 1914.
Harnden English Mastiff
Further along Central Avenue, this English mastiff is sheltered from the elements by a Neoclassical monument. This marble watchdog remains in excellent condition, his gaze as vigilant as ever and the sharpness of his claws and loose skin folds still remarkably intact. William Frederick Harnden (1812-1845) was the founder of Harnden and Company, one of the first independent express shipping companies in the United States. Harnden died of consumption (tuberculosis) in January 1845 and was buried next to his 10-month-old daughter, Sarah, who had died three years prior. In 1866 the Express Companies of America erected this monument in Harnden’s memory, replacing his original, plainer marker. The corporation hired Boston sculptor Thomas A. Carew to carve the English mastiff as a symbol of fidelity and security on the journey into the afterlife.
Full view of Harnden Monument.
Wingate Whippet
Located on Olive Path, this sculpture of a whippet is a small decorative element at the rear of the Wingate family plot. The dog lies in a crate-like enclosure, measuring 32″ wide x 16″ high x 18″ deep, which was originally made of glass and bronze and has since been replaced with plexiglass that has become somewhat opaque. The sculpture, which dates to 1866, includes a base inscribed “Their Favorite.” This diminutive whippet protects the graves of Abbott P. and William A. Wingate, Jr. (“Willie”), both of whom died in 1865 at ages 20 and 18, respectively (it is believed that they died in the Civil War). Sculptor Martin Milmore is best known for two prominent local memorials to the Civil War dead: the gigantic Sphinx (1873) facing the Bigelow Chapel at Mount Auburn Cemetery and the Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Boston Common (1877).
Richardson Dog
On Oak Avenue at Mount Auburn, the Richardson Dog serves as a psychopomp to William Taylor Richardson, Jr. (1846-1864), an infantryman in the Massachusetts 33rd Regiment during the Civil War. It is unclear in which battle Richardson died, but over the course of the war his regiment lost 104 enlisted men killed and mortally wounded and 77 enlisted men by disease. Young Richardson was was only 18 years old when he was laid to rest at Mount Auburn Cemetery. His parents commissioned Alexander McDonald, who operated a monument works on Mt. Auburn Street, to carve the dog for his grave.
Francis Calley Gray English Setter
Tucked away on Hemlock Path, you will find this mournful English Setter resting atop a granite slab. The memorial marks the tomb of Francis Calley Gray (1790-1856), who served as private secretary to John Quincy Adams and later became a philanthropist, legislator, art collector, and one of the earliest proprietors of the Mount Auburn Cemetery. His vast collection of early engravings and prints made him America’s first great print collector. In 1837 Gray visited Rome, where he met Joseph Gott (1786-1860), a sculptor who specialized in life-like animal and human sculptures; Gray soon commissioned Gott to carve an English Setter in marble. The sculpture was originally intended for placement at Mount Auburn in an unknown location. However, in 1849 Gray gave the sculpture to his friend and fellow art collector William Appleton. Following Gray’s death in December 1856, Appleton had the dog placed on Gray’s grave at Mount Auburn. The setter appears to be in grief, with its head resting on its front leg and eyes open.
Mary Prentiss Saunders Dog
On Larch Avenue in Mount Auburn Cemetery, the smallest of all the funerary psychopomps can be found in the Saunders Family Plot. The dog serves as a guide to little Mary Prentiss Saunders (1843-1849), who died at just 6 years old. Mary was the daughter of William Saunders and Mary Prentiss; she was their first child, born two years after they married. As a wedding gift, William’s father, a housewright, built the couple a stunning Greek Revival house on Massachusetts Avenue. The house was later moved to Prentiss Street and is now known as the Mary Prentiss Inn.
We are back with the latest installment of our blog series on the wonderful CHC volunteers. Today we would like you to meet volunteer (and former staff and Commission member) Allison Crump.
How long have you been with the Cambridge Historical Commission?
I came to the Commission as an Audubon summer intern in 1975, while attending the Columbia Preservation program. After graduation, I joined the staff for several years. Later I was an appointed member of the Commission for 20 years. Now I’m retired, I’m back to my roots!
What collection have you been working on? Tell us more about it.
The City Clerk’s archives include several boxes of applications to the Cambridge City Council for permission to move structures, which was once a common practice. The applications I am working with date from 1870 – 1910; these are the ones we have found, but there may well be more. [Editor’s note: We are calling this the Building Removals Collection. Allison has been going through the applications in search of the original and subsequent – post-move – locations of these structures.]
A building removal form for a property at Broadway and Main, 1888
What is the importance of the Building Removals Collection?
When I am successful at determining the original and subsequent locations, it’s a view into development patterns, as demands for more modern, larger structures in high-value locations created surplus structures available for re-use in various ways, often in areas newly subdivided for development.
What’s challenging is that descriptions of the sites are not always precise, and even when street numbers are used, these have often changed over time. In some cases, approved removals appear to have never occurred, or were subject to multiple applications as proposed routes or locations shifted. Another interesting aspect is the activity of specific moving firms at different periods.
It’s most satisfying when the survey files have speculated that a building was moved to its current location, and the removal files tie it to an original site.
Example of a completed building removal research form (completed by a former CHC staff member)
What is your academic and career background?
In undergrad, I majored in history and art history, specializing in architectural history. After Columbia and working at the Commission, I gradually migrated into affordable housing and nonprofit finance as my professional focus. It’s fun to be back in the research game.
How long have you lived in Cambridge?
Over 40 years. But I’m still a newcomer, and would never presume to describe this as my hometown. My kid’s a native, though, so that gives me some standing.
What is your favorite thing about historic preservation? (or, your favorite building in Cambridge?)
I’m most interested in the flexibility of structures to adapt to changing needs over time. That makes it possible to maintain continuity and context in the built environment, even when their original purpose has been superseded. It’s also deeply satisfying to witness the extent to which preservation values have become accepted and see individual buildings, streets and neighborhoods which once seemed doomed, now in good repair and no longer threatened. The block of Broadway between Prospect and Inman Streets is a great example of this phenomenon.
