Cambridge’s Second Oldest Home Built in the Late 1600s Hits the Market for $5.8 Million
After seven decades serving as the historical society’s headquarters, the iconic Hooper-Lee-Nichols House—a 17th-century Georgian masterpiece known as Cambridge, MA’s oldest second home—is transitioning to private tourism and looking for its next owner.
Built around 1684, nearly a century before the Revolutionary War, the luxury mansion at 159 Brattle Street hit the market last week for $5.8 million.
Nestled on a tree-lined New England street in the heart of West Cambridge, this spacious property features 10 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, and a desirable location just down the street from world-renowned Harvard University.
“This is unlike any place I’ve worked in West Cambridge,” the listing agent said Nicole Monahanof LandVest, tells Realtor.com®. “This is unique.”
The Hooper-Lee-Nichols House has undergone many renovations and changes during its 340-year history, but since 1957 it has been owned by the Cambridge Historical Society, now known as Historic Cambridge.
According to the organization, Richard Hoopera doctor who is believed to have moved to Cambridge from New Hampshire, bought an 11-acre farm, including the house, for £45 in 1684 and lived there with his wife and two children until his death six years later.
His inventory included a well-furnished house, a barn, an orchard, cattle, pigs, horses and a servant.
Over the next three centuries, this magnificent home changed hands 10 times, and its occupants included merchant families, ship captains and a slave-owning judge.
The last private owner of the home was Frances Emersondaughter of a financier William August Whitewho was given the house as a gift from his father in 1923. According to local legend, the woman found the title to the house on the toe of her Christmas stocking.
When Emerson and her husband died in 1957, she left the house in her will to a local historical society founded in 1905.
Searching for an executor
Today, much of the Hooper-Lee-Nichols House reflects primarily the Georgian Style, although parts of the early 17th century architecture are still visible, as well as Victorian and Colonial Revival remodeling.
The listing notes that although the three-story home is planned for office use, “future owners will have the opportunity to reimagine the interior as a large private home.”
Monahan points out that the heritage residence—the oldest on Brattle Street—is protected by historic preservation measures put in place by the Massachusetts Historical Commission to protect its interior.
“It has to be someone who appreciates the history here and is willing to preserve it,” said Monahan when asked about the right person to buy this unique building. “It’s going to take someone to love that and be willing to put in some effort to make it viable as a single-family home again after it’s been used as offices for so many years.”
A time capsule of architectural styles
From its front entrance to the basement, the Cambridge home is filled with flourishes and details that reflect classic styles.
One of the oldest rooms in the house, the Bosphorus Room dates back to 1685 and the first owner of the home. It was updated in the 1700s and mid-1800s, when fashionable Parisian wallpaper depicting the Strait of Bosphorus in Turkey was installed, giving the room its name.
Dating from the late 1600s, the Naples Room on the second floor is also notable for its Parisian wallpaper depicting the Bay of Naples in Italy, and its impressive fireplace.
The library, known as the Chandler Room, after that Joseph Everett Chandleran early conservative architect who remodeled the house in 1916, it has a brick basement, a rich wooden ceiling, and a large fireplace with an open hearth—in keeping with the room’s original purpose as a kitchen.
Outside, the detached carriage house/garage is spacious enough to accommodate two cars.
Monahan says one listing has generated a lot of interest this past week, and he’s already had two showings, with more planned in the coming days.
