1872, Cummings and Sears. 121 Commonwealth Ave.
-
(Damie Stillman)
Perhaps the most lively local example of the Ruskinian Gothic style, 121 Commonwealth Avenue sports a facade of red brick and buff sandstone trim, further enlivened by glazed tile accents, below a polychrome slate roof. The mansard's dormers rise to improbable, turretlike heights, further adorned by iron cresting. While such a wide array of materials and motifs might seem striving or restless in less competent hands, the architects impart an order to such richness through the dominant polygonal bay, producing a design that is lively without being showy. Unsympathetically altered in the early 1960s, the entrance has recently been restored to its original appearance.