You are here

Metropolitan Boston » Cambridge » Brattle Street » 158 Brattle Street

158 Brattle Street

-A A +A
1884, William Ralph Emerson.

The evolution of Colonial Revival from irregular exuberance to contained symmetry can be seen in this transitional house. Emerson, a nephew of poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, was an early student of New England colonial architecture. In this house, he designed a balanced composition of three bays topped by dormer windows, creating the first symmetrical Colonial Revival house in Cambridge. At the second-story front, however, he pushed out the facade, supporting this projection with foliage corbels on columns flanking the entrance door. The picturesque earlier pattern of Colonial Revival design is well represented by a slightly later house at 168 Brattle Street.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Keith N. Morgan
×

Data

What's Nearby

Hooper-Lee-Nichols House
Joseph Thorpe House
Henry Van Brunt House
Highland Street
Ruggles-Fayerweather House

Citation

Keith N. Morgan, "158 Brattle Street", [Cambridge, Massachusetts], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/MA-01-BS12.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Massachusetts

Buildings of Massachusetts: Metropolitan Boston, Keith N. Morgan, with Richard M. Candee, Naomi Miller, Roger G. Reed, and contributors. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2009, 352-352.

If SAH Archipedia has been useful to you, please consider supporting it.

SAH Archipedia tells the story of the United States through its buildings, landscapes, and cities. This freely available resource empowers the public with authoritative knowledge that deepens their understanding and appreciation of the built environment. But the Society of Architectural Historians, which created SAH Archipedia with University of Virginia Press, needs your support to maintain the high-caliber research, writing, photography, cartography, editing, design, and programming that make SAH Archipedia a trusted online resource available to all who value the history of place, heritage tourism, and learning.

,