Have you noticed the Otis House as you’ve walked past on Cambridge Street? I’ve walked by this building innumerable times, and finally visited last spring during one of our Backyard Adventures. The house is beautiful inside, but even more interesting was the look into the past that it offers visitors. Built in 1796 by Harrison Gray Otis and wife Sally Foster Otis by their (later pretty famous!) architect friend Charles Bullfinch, this house was originally in a quiet and green neighborhood populated by some of the richest people in the city. The view out the front windows was up the wild and green Beacon Hill, which was completely undeveloped at the time!
With the building of the Longfellow Bridge, this area became a thoroughfare for people coming from Cambridge and west of the city, and with the increased traffic came increased noise and bustle. The Otis’s noticed the change, and together with a groups of other prominent residents, joined in developing the south side of Beacon Hill as a new desirable neighborhood for those with means, and were among the first to decamp there. They lived on Mount Vernon Street, and then later on Beacon Street (now the Meteorological Society), all buildings designed by Bullfinch.
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