Berkeley Street Historic District

Berkeley Street and Berkeley Place form a quiet residential enclave in Old Cambridge, Massachusetts. The land was part of a thirty-seven acre parcel bought in 1843 by Professor Joseph Worcester, who laid out the street in the early 1850s and sold lots for expensive houses. Most early houses are large Bracketed Italianate and Mansard homes built between 1852 and 1878, including T-plan suburban houses and the only textbook Italian Villa in Old Cambridge. Later Queen Anne, Shingle Style and Stucco Style houses, including Berkeley Place, laid out in 1890, follow the mass and siting of the earlier ones. The district is notable for architectural unity and for residents such as author Richard Henry Dana, historian John Fiske and Henry Ware, a state official who helped found the Boston symphony orchestra. Cul-de-sac Berkeley Place and brick buildings nearby leave the area feeling isolated from the surrounding city.