Roxbury Highlands Historic District

Roxbury Highlands is a Boston neighborhood of roughly 170 acres built on steep hills, with rust-colored puddingstone outcroppings and short, winding streets that follow the terrain. About ninety percent of its buildings are homes: detached frame houses, two-family houses, triple deckers, row houses and apartment blocks. Churches, schools and commercial buildings make up the rest. Construction ran from the early 1800s into the 1930s, and the district includes Federal, Greek Revival, Gothic Revival, Italianate, Second Empire, Queen Anne, Shingle and Bungalow examples. Only two eighteenth-century buildings survive. The area also has links to notable residents, among them abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, author Edward Everett Hale and chromolithographer Louis Prang, whose factory still stands on Roxbury Street. Builder George D. Cox left some of its most elaborate developments. Residents have come from many ethnic backgrounds over time. Disinvestment began in the 1950s, but neighborhood groups and private owners have since renewed interest in the area.