Benjamin Hoyt House
- Year
- 1868
- Style
- Italianate
- City
- Boston, MA
The Benjamin Hoyt House, a 2.5-story wood-frame house at 134 Otis Street, was built in 1868 and is one of the only bracketed Italianate houses to survive in East Cambridge. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 13, 1982.
the building
Bracketed gable. A front-facing gable carries dentil moulding and brackets along its cornice, with a fully pedimented gable end holding a round-arch window in the tympanum — the ornate bracket work that gave the Italianate style its name and that has largely vanished from East Cambridge.
Cornice and windows. The main roof cornice repeats the dentil moulding in paired brackets, while the front windows carry slightly projecting lintel caps, small but consistent Italianate flourishes across the facade.
the style
Italianate architecture spread through American cities in the mid-1800s, prized for its bracketed cornices and round-arch details borrowed from Italian villas. This house matters simply for surviving with that ornament intact — East Cambridge lost most of its bracketed Italianate housing stock, leaving this as one of the few examples still standing.
More on Italianatesignificance
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 13, 1982, valued as one of the only surviving bracketed Italianate houses in East Cambridge.
nearby
- Sacred Heart Church, Rectory, School and Convent
- East Cambridge Savings Bank
- Athenaeum Press
- Beth Israel Synagogue
- Arthur D. Little Inc., Building
- Wiesner building