The Edmund Dwight House is a historic house at 5 Cambridge Street in

Winchester, Massachusetts Winchester is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, located 8.2 miles (13.2 km) north of downtown Boston as part of the Greater Boston metropolitan area. It is also one of the List of Massachusetts locations by per capita income, wealt ...

, straddling the town line with Arlington. It was built in 1858 in an

Italianate style The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...

. It was one of the first and grandest country houses built in Winchester at a time when

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

businessmen were seeking to build such houses. Edmund Dwight, the wealthy businessman who was its first owner, was married to a great-granddaughter of

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 18 ...

. The house's design is believed to be based loosely on that of Jefferson's

Monticello Monticello ( ) was the primary plantation of Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, who began designing Monticello after inheriting land from his father at age 26. Located just outside Charlottesville, V ...

. The house is sited for an expansive view of the

Upper Mystic Lake The Mystic Lakes, consisting of Upper Mystic Lake and Lower Mystic Lake, are closely linked bodies of water in the northwestern suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts. The lakes lie at an elevation of 1 meter above sea level, within the towns of Winch ...

. This residence was also home to

Claude Shannon Claude Elwood Shannon (April 30, 1916 – February 24, 2001) was an American people, American mathematician, electrical engineering, electrical engineer, and cryptography, cryptographer known as a "father of information theory". As a 21-year-o ...

, the father of

Information theory Information theory is the scientific study of the quantification (science), quantification, computer data storage, storage, and telecommunication, communication of information. The field was originally established by the works of Harry Nyquist a ...

, and his wife Betty Shannon. While living there, they installed a chair lift that took the rider from the home down to the lake. The house is a -story wood-frame structure, originally finished in clapboard siding. It is basically rectangular, with a rounded central bay on the eastern facade, facing the lake. A single-story porch wraps around three sides of the building. Significant alterations were made to the house in the 1890s, including the stuccoing of the exterior, and the addition of a two-story ell to the northeast corner. These changes were made under the auspices of local architect Robert Coit. A second, single-story, addition was made to the northwest corner in 1985. The original property purchased by the Dwights was subdivided 1940, leaving the house on just . The house's stable was then converted to a residence, and stands on an adjacent lot in Arlington. The house was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1989.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Winchester, Massachusetts Houses in Arlington, Massachusetts

See also

References