Fenway-Boylston Street District

This block along The Fenway in Boston, on the northeast edge of the Back Bay Fens, holds twenty-one buildings and the Johnson Memorial Gates, all built between the 1890s and 1910. Anchored by large corner buildings, including the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Carleton Chambers hotel and the Henry Bigelow Williams House, the block runs between rows of townhouses. The earliest, at 40-50 The Fenway, are brick Queen Anne-influenced rows from 1892; later houses adopt flat-fronted Colonial Revival, Federal Revival and Neo-Classical designs in light brick and limestone. Architects included Robert S. Peabody, Guy Lowell, Wheelwright and Haven, and Shaw and Hunnewell. The district was listed for showing the change in Boston's architectural taste over a short span, for its ties to prominent local families and institutions, and for its relationship to Olmsted's Fens and parkway. Alterations are limited mostly to windows, doorways, fire escapes and one added story, and the block keeps a unified appearance with uniform setbacks and shared horizontal lines.