National Register of Historic Places

cummings, e.e., House

Cambridge, Middlesex County, Massachusetts
Listed
June 29, 1983
Type
Building
Period
Industrial
Ref No.
83000796

About this property

The E. E. Cummings House is an historic house at 104 Irving Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The house was the childhood home of author and poet E. E. Cummings. The Colonial Revival house was built in 1893 for Cummings' parents, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. The Cummings house is set on a roughly triangular parcel formed by the junction of Irving and Scott Streets in the Shady Hill neighborhood east of Harvard University. It is a 2+1⁄2-story wood-frame structure with Colonial Revival massing and features. It has a projecting dentillated cornice below the gabled roof, and a porch supported by Tuscan columns. There is a projecting bay section at the center of the main facade to the left of the entry, and a single-story bay to its right. Windows are generally 1-over-1 sash, and the front entrance door is topped by a multilight transom window. Dormers of varying style project from the main roof. The house was designed by Walker and Kimball for Edward E. Cummings, a professor at Harvard and a local pastor, and was built in 1893. Cummings's son, the poet E. E. Cummings, was born here the following year, and lived here until he graduated from Harvard (BA 1915, MA 1917), and moved to New York City. Cummings described the house in his six nonlectures: "My own home faced the Cambridge world as a finely and solidly constructed mansion, preceded by a large oval lawn and ringed with an imposing white-pine hedge," and "The big Cambridge house was in this respect, as in all other respects, a true home." Joy Farm, the poet's summer house in New Hampshire, now a National Historic Landmark National Register of Historic Places listings in Cambridge, Massachusetts

Location

104 Irving St.
Cambridge, Middlesex County, Massachusetts
42.37440, -71.11052

Categories

ARCHITECTURE
National Register nomination ›
Sources

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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Nearby Historic Sites

Cambridge Public Library
Industrial
0 mi
Building at 1715-1717 Cambridge Street
Colonial
0.1 mi
Building at 1707-1709 Cambridge Street
Colonial
0.1 mi
Stanstead, The
Industrial
0.2 mi
Littlefield-Roberts House
Industrial
0.2 mi

Nearby Battles

Siege of Boston – Cambridge Lines
1775Revolutionary War
0.1 mi

Questions about this property

When was cummings, e.e., House listed on the National Register?

cummings, e.e., House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 29, 1983.

What type of historic resource is cummings, e.e., House?

cummings, e.e., House is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.

What is the period of significance for cummings, e.e., House?

The period of significance for cummings, e.e., House is recorded as the industrial era.

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