As early as August 1872, William Dean Howells wrote to his brother-in-law that he had purchased land on Concord Avenue in Cambridge, Massachusetts for 33 cents per square foot.[2] The family moved into their new home there on July 7, 1873.[3] Howells and his wife agreed it was "the prettiest house in Cambridge" and intended to live there for the rest of their lives.[4]
After the death of his wife Elinor Mead Howells in May 1910, Howells considered moving back to the Concord Avenue home with his daughter Mildred. Without Mrs. Howells, however, they found it "dreadful in its ghostliness and ghastliness" and, further, that the area had become noisy since the addition of two trolley lines nearby.[5]
Before moving to the Concord Avenue house, the Howells family had lived in other Cambridge homes. From 1866 to 1870, they lived in a house (built in 1857) a few blocks north of Harvard University, at 41 Sacramento Street and from 1870 to 1872 they lived at 3 Berkeley Street.[6] The Sacramento Street house is not on the National Register of Historic Places, but does have a city of Cambridge historic landmark designation.
In recent times, this house fell into very serious disrepair, but was in 2011 restored by a local historic-restoration-specialist builder, after consultations with the City of Cambridge Historical Commission.
