Luxury Homes

For $5.5 million, a Cambridge Colonial designed by a pioneer female architect

Lois Lilley Howe, who started what is believed to have been Boston’s 1st architectural firm founded by women, designed the home.

The house was built in 1900. Douglas Elliman

July 24, 2019

2 minutes to read

A Federal Colonial in West Cambridge designed by the renowned Lois Lilley Howe is on the market for $5,500,000.

Howe started what is believed to have been Boston’s first — and America’s second — architectural firm founded by women, according to the archives at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “The young field was still primarily a men’s club when Howe arrived at MIT in 1888 as one of only two women in the architecture program, and the only one in her entering class of 66 students,” the publication Mitarcha published in April.

Sitting on a corner just blocks from Harvard Square, the property at 49 Hawthorn St. features views of the Charles River and a garden. It is covered in gray cedar siding and still has its original windows.

The 5,325-square-foot home, in the Half-Crown Marsh Conservation District, was built in 1900. It has seven bedrooms, 4 full baths, 1 full bath, and a 0.13-acre lot.

Current owner Marceline Donaldson said the house has survived “the scandal of Harvard Square.” Contractors have been stripping and re-doing the insides of older homes in the area for years, Donaldson said. “This house has features that have been wiped out of Harvard Square.”

Those features include plaster and marble dust walls, antique Delft tile from Holland, and a sky mural painted on the ceiling above the stairs. “When you look up you see clouds and blue sky,” Donaldson said.

The three-story home also boasts its original crown molding and offers high ceilings and five elegant fireplaces.

Donaldson said a new buyer would easily be able to convert the home’s attic, which has a cathedral ceiling.

The home — designed by Howe and occupied primarily by women — actually was built for a Harvard professor who taught a class on how to treat women, Donaldson said. The house was also once home to Dr. Lydia Dawes, whose friend Dr. Anna Freud — daughter of Dr. Sigmund Freud — would often visit.

For all of its history, though, the property still offers modern luxuries, such as a jetted tub and a steam shower.

The Sarkis Team at Douglas Elliman Real Estate has the listing.

See more photos of the home below:

49 Hawthorn Street

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