{"nrhp_refnum":"86002076","name":"Lovering, Joseph, House","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"38 Kirkland St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Cambridge","county":"Middlesex County","state":"MA","lat":42.37687561600006,"lon":-71.11278797699998,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1986-09-12","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Education","Science","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A two-and-a-half-story clapboard Greek Revival house at 38 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts, built in 1839 and designed by builder Oliver Hastings with Luther Brooks. It is now used as offices by Harvard University.","why_significant":"The house is described as the most important surviving high-style \"Grecian temple\" house in Cambridge, one of only two remaining with a full-porticoed temple front. It is also tied to Joseph Lovering, a long-serving Harvard professor and leading scientific figure who bought it in 1843. It meets Criteria B and C.","narrative":"Built in 1839 at 38 Kirkland Street in Cambridge, this clapboard house rises two and a half stories behind a two-story Ionic portico that carries a gabled pediment, with a delicate iron balcony railing on the facade. Oliver Hastings, a Cambridge lumber dealer and builder, designed it in collaboration with Luther Brooks, owner of the neighboring house at 34 Kirkland Street. Of the surviving Greek Revival mansions in Mid-Cambridge, only two have a full temple front, and this is one of them. Hastings kept the house until 1843, when Professor Joseph Lovering bought it and it became part of Professors' Row. Lovering held the Hollis chair of mathematics and natural philosophy for fifty years and served as Harvard Regent, Director of the U.S. Coast Survey, and president of two major scholarly societies. His family kept the house until 1941. It later served as a nursing home before Harvard bought it in 1961 for office use.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"Oliver Hastings & Luther Brooks","architectural_style":"Greek Revival","criteria":["B","C"],"status_note":"Presently used as offices (English Department) by Harvard University; no major alterations, though two front gable windows were added in the late 1960s.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:13:00.616391-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/64/7920/63792064/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/86002076.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/86002076/e730a40fe8-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/86002076/e730a40fe8-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Swampyank at en.wikipedia","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Joseph_Lovering_House_in_Cambridge_Ma.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Swampyank at en.wikipedia</a>, <a href=\"https://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:Joseph_Lovering_House_in_Cambridge_Ma.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63792064","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Lovering_House","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6285037"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/middlesex-county/lovering-joseph-house-86002076/"}