Bertram Taylor House

Architect Bertram Taylor constructed his own Shingle Style house, typical of fashionable middle-class homes in the Boston suburbs that he designed with his partner, George D. Rand. Taylor chose a site at the base of a hill, near a housing development called Gray Cliff, laid out by Frederick Law Olmsted. Outside of the hilltop development, Taylor's house overlooks Beacon Street, a major thoroughfare through Newton. Taylor constructed his house of materials that blend into the rustic setting—random fieldstone for the first story, chimney, and wall of the open terrace and wood shingles with subtle variations in their patterns for the porch pediment and upper floors. Taylor later became a partner in the firm of Kendall and Stevens and continued to work as a major designer of homes in the Boston suburbs.