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.
Woodstock Handmade Houses in Cambridge
9 Montague Street Cambridge MA
Recently we toured one of the most unusual houses I’ve seen in Cambridge – 9 Montague Street. The house reminded me of one of my all time favorite books – Woodstock Handmade Houses.
Woodstock Handmade Houses, published in 1974, is filled with photos of the funkiest of funky houses – domes, cabins, refurbished churches, etc. – houses for hippies I guess. It’s a celebration of the creative, the unorthodox, the fun of houses that feel much warmer and more interesting than so much of what we see nowadays.
9 Montague Street was all that and more. It was a re-purposed building and perhaps a better example of a house from another fun 1970s house book – Converted Into Houses: 33 Uniquely Imaginative Homes Created from Unconventional Structures. It was built in 1901 as a meeting space for the Riverside Alliance Church. More recently, its architect owners have used it as live-work space. Far from polished, it was funky and cool and all too unusual for Cambridge nowadays.
9 Montague will be transformed I imagine. At 7500 sq. ft. with yard space and parking it has all sorts of possibilities for development. While I look forward to seeing what it will become I can’t help but wince at the loss of the imaginative and interesting.
Perhaps in other parts of the country – or world – where land is less expensive, there are more unusual and creative houses to be found. I’ve got my books to remind me – in fact a small collection of these 1970s books. Here are some of my favorites:
Converted Into Houses: 33 Uniquely Imaginative Homes Created from Unconventional Structures by Charles A. Fracchia and Jeremiah O. Bragstad. Penguin Books. 1977.
Good Lives by Jeffrey Weiss and Herbert H. Wise. Perigree Books. 1977.
Handmade Houses: A Guide to the Woodbutcher’s Art by Art Boericke and Barry Shapiro. A & W Visual Library. 1973.
Living Places by Herbert H. Wise and Jeffrey Friedman-Weiss. Quick Fox. 1976.
Woodstock Handmade Houses by Robert Haney and David Ballantine. Jonathan Elliott, photographer. Random House. 1974.
Working Places by Jeffrey Weiss. Photographs by David Leach. St. Martin’s Press. 1980.
If you know of other books like these I can add to my collection let me know!
Woodstock Handmade Houses
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