Asa Grey Home Is Listed for $10.8M

The swoon-worthy Asa Grey Home at 88 Backyard Road in Cambridge, MA, checks all of the packing containers—historical past, allure, and strolling proximity to Harvard Sq..

The place was not too long ago listed for $10,800,000.

Though at all times privately owned, the house has been a Nationwide Historic Landmark since 1965.

The five-bedroom, 6.5-bath dwelling is called after the well-known Harvard botanist and passionate Darwinian, who lived in it for greater than 40 years. However his isn’t the one notable title tied to the 7,588-square-foot residence.

“The property was designed by well-known architect Ithiel City and was constructed in 1810, inside the Harvard Botanic Backyard,” says itemizing agent Gail Roberts. “The aim of the house was to be a residence for zoologist William Dandridge Peck.”

After Peck, occupants included botanist Thomas Nuttall and former Harvard presidents James Walker and Jared Sparks.

Grey moved into the home after being appointed Harvard’s Massachusetts Professor of Pure Historical past. He lived there till he died in 1888.

However one of the crucial attention-grabbing elements of the house is that it hasn’t at all times occupied this specific lot on Backyard Road.

“In 1910, the home was moved additional down the road to its present location after it was bought by Allen H. Cox, an MIT-trained architect,” Roberts says.

Apart from its lengthy and storied historical past, the home has a lot to supply modern-day residents.

From the richly preserved, customized millwork and stonework to the various fireplaces and high-end home equipment, the Asa Grey Home is the product of excellent style—previous and current.

“Your entire house was meticulously renovated in 2022 and 2023 by extremely expert architects, inside designers, carpenters, stoneworkers, and panorama architects,” Roberts says. “The attractive eat-in chef’s kitchen was utterly customized made and can please the hardest critics.”

That expansive kitchen leads outdoors, by means of units of glass doorways, to an enormous Brazilian-wood deck.

Every of the house’s bedrooms has its personal spa-inspired, en suite lavatory with radiant warmth.

And the first-floor studio—which has a moist bar, skylights, and a shower—might be used as a gymnasium, visitor room, or workspace.

The decrease degree accommodates a big media room, visitor room, and bathtub. Different areas embrace formal dwelling and eating rooms and an workplace.

The house’s design beckons to the verdant, third-acre property, because of its seamless indoor-outdoor areas.

And in the event you determine to enterprise past your historic palace, you’re only a brief stroll from the perfect metropolis facilities Cambridge has to supply.

“The house is inside a mile radius of Cambridge’s Harvard Sq., Porter Sq., and lots of
nice parks,” Roberts says. “Dwelling right here permits quick access to Harvard College, Lesley College, MIT, plus famend private and non-private colleges.”