Centers And Squares
Welcome to Centers and Squares
As a Cambridge real estate agent, the city squares of Cambridge, Somerville and Medford and the town centers of Arlington, Watertown and Belmont, Massachusetts are my home turf. And as a lifelong New Englander who’s lived within twenty miles of Boston most of my life, I can introduce you to other nearby towns as we search for your new home. If you’re planning to sell your home in Cambridge, MA or nearby you’ll find plenty of info about the home selling process here too. Questions? Send me an email or call me at 617-504-1737.
Houses On High
There’s no getting around it – I love houses. Old houses, newer houses, houses large and small.
Working as a real estate allows me to indulge myself – though I have to guard my enthusiasms. It’s hard not to fall – and fall hard – when I see a fabulous house on tour. My budget keeps my home buying in check but there are fewer safeguards on my time.
It’s easy to get carried away online – spending precious time cruising through the listings on MLS. But every once in a while I indulge myself.
I call it the serendipity approach to MLS searching. When you need to pull up an MLS listing to make an appointment or answer a question an address search is typically the easiest way to find the entry.
But rather than type in “404 Elm Street” I type in just “Elm” and skim through the universe of listings on streets with “Elm” in the name.
Elm in fact would be a good one to search. So are street names like Main, North, Adams, West – any street’s that likely to have been around for a long time and have lots of old and interesting houses.
Yesterday I hit the motherlode when I searched the MLS for “High”. The search results maxed out – over 500 properties were listed for sale on High Street, Ave, etc or some variation of High such as Highland, Highfield or Highway.
And there were some glorious houses in the bunch. One after another fantasy-inducing house came up in the results. Too many to go through in one sitting.
Here are two of the most wonderful.
The first is a splendid turreted Queen Anne Victorian in Spencer. It’s really a compound with a large turreted carriage house and another small cottage. Check out the architectural details in the photos. All this on two acres for $799,000.
The second property is one of the most amazing houses I’ve come across on MLS. It’s a Japanese styled house in Fall River at 657 Highland Avenue. It was designed by noted architect Ralph Adams Cram in 1897 for Unitarian minister Reverend Arthur Knapp.
Buildings designed by Cram and his firm in Cambridge include houses at 128 Brattle Street and 26 Elmwood. Cram designed many churches including the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York and at least two in Cambridge: the Unitarian church in Harvard Square and the Society of St. John the Evangelist on Memorial Drive.
The extraordinary house in Fall River with its pagoda roof is on the National Register of Historic Places. Known as “Rising Sun” 657 Highland Ave is listed for just $299,888 – under $300k and magnificent!
You gott see these Houses on High – click on the small image for lots more photographs.
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