Shady Hill Historic District

Shady Hill is a tree-lined residential district of roughly 26 acres in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a few blocks from Harvard Square. Land that once belonged to the Frost and Norton estates was subdivided in the 1880s under a curvilinear street plan by Charles Eliot of the Olmsted firm. Deed restrictions required substantial single-family houses set well back from the street. The first houses went up in 1889, and the neighborhood was largely built within about twenty years, with Colonial Revival construction continuing into the 1920s and 1930s. The result is a notably uniform grouping of Queen Anne and Colonial Revival homes, alongside a few earlier houses on Kirkland Street. The district also has strong ties to Harvard. It includes the William James House, the childhood home of poet e. e. cummings, and the Charles W. Eliot House, built for the future Harvard president's family. Its architecture, landscape design and associations with prominent residents support its listing.