Bennink-Douglas Cottages

The Bennink-Douglas Cottages are located in an densely built residential area between the Cambridge Common and the Radcliffe Quadrangle, on the south side of Walker Street. The four buildings are each 1+1⁄2-story wood-frame structure on brick foundations, with mansard roofs that provide a full second floor. Each cottage is four bays wide, with two entrances in the center bays and polygonal projecting window bays in the outer bays, rising through the mansard level. The steep sections of the roofs feature hexagonal slate shingles. Three of the four have bracketed hoods sheltering the entrances; the fourth had its porch rebuilt in the Colonial Revival style. The roof eaves also have paired Italianate brackets.^[2]

The four cottages were built in 1874 as a speculative venture by Gerritt Bennink and William Douglas for sale as low-to-middle-cost housing for workers. Their style was typical of low-cost housing built during the 1870s throughout Cambridge, a period in which the city experienced rapid growth; by the late 1880s, the triple-decker became a more common low-cost construction. The exteriors of these four buildings have, for the most part, retained their original appearance. The land on which they were built was subdivided for development in 1868; it had been pasture land before then.^[2]

• National Register of Historic Places listings in Cambridge, Massachusetts