Odd Fellows Hall
- Architect
- Hartwell and Richardson
- Style
- Romanesque Revival
- City
- Boston, MA
Odd Fellows Hall at 536 Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge was built in 1884 by members of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, with commercial space on the ground floor and a lodge hall upstairs, following the typical layout of lodge buildings of the period. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982, the building was bought and repurposed in 1991 by Rozann Kraus, who founded the Dance Complex here specifically to save it.
the building
Lodge hall layout. Like many fraternal lodge buildings of the 1880s, the ground floor held business and commercial tenants while the Odd Fellows' own lodge hall occupied the floor above.
The Dance Complex. The building now holds six dance studios and the Julie Ince Thompson Theatre, run by the Dance Complex, the organization founded in 1991 specifically to purchase and preserve the hall.
the style
Hartwell and Richardson designed the hall in the Romanesque Revival style then in fashion for substantial civic and lodge buildings.
More on Romanesque Revivalsignificance
The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 13, 1982.
nearby
- First Baptist Church
- Margaret Fuller House
- Clifton Merriman Post Office Building
- St. Peter's Episcopal Church
- Maria Baldwin House
- River Street Firehouse