{"nrhp_refnum":"79000355","name":"Hooper-Lee Nichols House","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"159 Brattle St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Cambridge","county":"Middlesex County","state":"MA","lat":42.37716786900006,"lon":-71.13587498899994,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1979-06-15","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Politics/Government","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A house at 159 Brattle Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, built about 1685 by Dr. Richard Hooper and remodelled in the Georgian style about 1745. It is now operated as a historic house museum.","why_significant":"It is the oldest of seven Brattle Street mansions associated with pre-Revolutionary Tory figures and one of three seventeenth-century houses remaining in Cambridge. Although altered many times, it keeps its importance as a largely eighteenth-century mansion. It retains a massive original central chimney and interior features added by successive occupants.","narrative":"Built around 1685 on a farm then in Watertown, this house at 159 Brattle Street in Cambridge began as the home of Dr. Richard Hooper. Its oldest surviving element is a great central chimney twelve feet square, with six flues above the roof. About 1745 the house was remodelled in the Georgian style, with a raised roof, quoins, shutters, a pedimented vestibule and roughcast walls scored to look like stone. Later owners included Boston merchant Cornelius Waldo and Judge Joseph Lee, who added panelling, mantels and window seats between about 1748 and 1760. In 1860 George Nichols added the decorative roof parapet, using balusters from a discarded church railing. Early in the twentieth century Austin T. White added a library and enlarged the ell. Notable interiors include French Dufour wallpaper. The house is the oldest of seven Brattle Street mansions tied to Tory families and one of only three seventeenth-century houses left in Cambridge. It now serves as a museum.","period_of_significance":"1600-1699, 1700-1799, 1800-1899","architect_builder":"Various","architectural_style":"Georgian (remodelling c. 1745) over a seventeenth-century house","criteria":[],"status_note":"Operated as an historic house museum by the Cambridge Historical Society; listed as occupied and altered.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:11:54.142593-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/21/7960/63796021/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/79000355.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/79000355/76740e8fbf-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/79000355/76740e8fbf-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Daderot at en.wikipedia","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hooper-Lee-Nichols_House,_Cambridge,_Massachusetts.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Daderot at en.wikipedia</a>, <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hooper-Lee-Nichols_House,_Cambridge,_Massachusetts.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63796021","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hooper%E2%80%93Lee%E2%80%93Nichols_House","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5898340"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/middlesex-county/hooper-lee-nichols-house-79000355/"}