{"nrhp_refnum":"87001889","name":"Sumner Hill Historic District","other_names":[],"category":"district","location":{"address":"Roughly bounded by Seaverns Ave., Everett St., Carolina Ave., & Newbern St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Boston","county":"Suffolk County","state":"MA","lat":42.30971500000004,"lon":-71.11174777243677,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1987-10-22","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Community Planning and Development","Education","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A residential historic district on a hill in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, covering about 365 acres. It contains 63 buildings and 18 structures, mostly wood-frame houses built between 1850 and 1900, plus two churches and a former high school.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the district is a well-preserved residential area with an unusual number of substantial, architecturally distinguished buildings from 1850 to 1900, many designed by leading Boston architects. It also represents a classic Boston commuter-suburb settlement pattern made possible by the railroad. Many landscape features that gave the hill its suburban and rural character survive.","narrative":"Sumner Hill is a hilltop residential district in Jamaica Plain, Boston, developed mainly between 1850 and 1900 on land subdivided from large earlier estates, beginning with the David Greenough property. Its curving streets, deep setbacks, puddingstone retaining walls and mature trees give it a park-like feel. The houses show nearly every major nineteenth-century style, including Italianate, Second Empire, Stick, Queen Anne, Shingle and Colonial Revival. Boston architects such as Ware and Van Brunt, William Ralph Emerson and Clarence Blackall designed some of them, and local builder John D. Webster designed others. Two Gothic Revival churches and the Tudor Revival former high school of 1901 add public buildings of high quality. The district was listed for its architecture and for what it shows about commuter suburb growth after the Boston and Providence railroad arrived in 1834. Alterations have been modest, mostly synthetic siding, enclosed porches and small additions.","period_of_significance":"1850-1915","architect_builder":"Ware and Van Brunt; William Ralph Emerson; Clarence Blackall and George F. Newton; Harris M. Stephenson; Andrews, Jacques, and Rantoul; John D. Webster","architectural_style":"Second Empire, Italianate, Queen Anne, Stick, Shingle, Gothic Revival, Colonial Revival, Tudor Revival","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"The district is largely well maintained and keeps its single-family residential character. Several larger houses have been converted to multi-family use. The former Jamaica Plain High School is vacant and scheduled for exterior restoration as part of conversion to apartments.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:13:00.691849-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/5/7969/63796905/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/87001889.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/87001889/3e8d0b8de6-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/87001889/3e8d0b8de6-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"John Phelan","credit_html":"John Phelan, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hope_Central_Church,_Jamaica_Plain_MA.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63796905","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumner_Hill_Historic_District","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7637980"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/suffolk-county/sumner-hill-historic-district-87001889/"}