About Cambridge's Harvard Square

One of my favorite things about Cambridge, and Harvard Square in particular, is how many decades, centuries actually, are commemorated here.

From Colonial times to the recent past - there are buildings, monuments, plaques and more memorializing people, places and events from Cambridge's past.

Walk down any block and you're likely to come across the juxtaposition of Cambridge then and Cambridge now.

Here are a couple I spotted recently:

The first school house in Cambridge in 1646 was here on what is now Holyoke Street in Harvard Square. The street was called Crooked Lane in the 1600s.

Today, where the school house once stood is Looks, a women's boutique - one of several you'll find in Harvard Square.

On the other side of the square, in the Cambridge Common, this plaque marks the site of a Revolutionary War encampment (complete with a 21st century water bottle littering the lawn)

Now, the site of a playground for Cambridge kids.

Take a walk around Cambridge and stroll through the centuries.

I have always loved September. It is a month of beginnings. All those years we started out all bright and shiny, through all those schools moving through the beginning days of that academic year with hope and trepidation. As a professional, September is a time when actively marketing and promoting your personal brand is a must. This is a month when people are open and fresh. Remember they are just off vacations and lazier, more relaxed days. The freshness helps the openness to new ideas. It is a time when your message has more of a chance. When it is not seen here, it is harder to be seen at the other critical times in the year.

Minimum touches into your farm area in a year needs to be six. Postcards lead to calls, leads to email and a building of the subscription base that then become clients and evangelists for your brand. You have to be in front of people at this point. Postcards are a good starter. You can deliver them through the mail, but I think there is great value in personally delivering at least one of your four postcard mailings. You have to be connected to this house to know where it fits in with all the other houses. This is your area; you need to be the expert. You can’t be the expert of a property unless you stand on that ground and look at it. As the weather cools it is a good time to walk your neighborhoods.

I think you should call each homeowner at least once during the year. You let them know who you are, what you offer and ask if you can deliver some information to them with no obligation. Offer them the e-newsletter. Make sure your e-newsletter has information they value. We will discuss what questions you want to ask in your yearly call to the homeowner and what value you want to share in a later blog. We are talking about September being the month of fresh beginnings that define your year.

Put on your new clothes, grab your backpack and make you a good year.

581 Mount Auburn St in Cambridge is a single family townhouse not far from Harvard Square. In move-in condition, it's on the market for $529,000.

Set back from the street, the townhouse has views of historic Mount Auburn Cemetery on one side, and the Larchwood neighborhood on the other. Inside, the 1980 sq.ft. townhouse has a lofty, open and modern feel with:

• Renovated kitchen with cherry cabinets, granite counters, stainless steel appliances and a pantry closet
• Dining room with sliders to a private deck and enclosed garden
• 2.5 baths
• Spacious office
• Living room with wood burning fireplace
• Spacious master bedroom with bath and three closets
• Second bedroom
• Washer and dryer in the basement
• Direct access from the one-car garage
• Attic storage
• Central air conditioning

Upgrades include Harvey replacement windows on the upper floors, new HVAC, a renovated kitchen and updated baths.

Neighborhood amenities include Fresh Pond with its two mile walking trail, golf course and playground. It's a haven for dogs and their owners - Cambridge canine residents can go off-leash. Mount Auburn Cemetery is a National Historic Site and a popular destination for bird watchers with its many bucolic paths, two ponds and an observatory tower. There's a branch of the Cambridge Public Library around the corner and a large Star Market a couple of blocks away. Trader Joe's and Whole Foods are close by at Alewife. There are abundant shops and restaurants in Harvard Square and Huron Village, both within walking distance.

581 Mount Auburn offers easy access to Memorial and Storrow Drives, Mount Auburn Hospital and Routes 2, 128, 93 and 95. It's a lovely walk down Brattle Street into Harvard Square or if you'd rather hop on the bus it stops right out front.

581 Mount Auburn Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 is listed for $529,000 with Elizabeth Bolton of Coldwell Banker. For more information or to schedule a visit please call Liz at 617-504-1737.

9 Ellery Street - Cambridge Condos Want a walk-to-everything location? A condo near the Red Line? Near Harvard Square? Near Central Square?

You'll find it at 9 Ellery Street, a 24-unit Cambridge condo building just off Mass Ave between Central and Harvard Square.

Built in 1929 as the Thurston Apartments, 9 Ellery Street was converted to condominiums some years ago.

Will you be working at Harvard or MIT or attending grad school? 9 Ellery Street is midway between Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

This is a fun stretch of Massachusetts Avenue - lined with restaurants, pubs, shops and bookstores. The newly renovated Cambridge Public Library is close by and so is the Charles River. No need for a car here - you can catch the Red Line at Harvard or Central and the bus runs down Mass Ave regularly.

9 Ellery Street Features:

All condos in the building are one-bedrooms - perfect for first-time buyers, graduate students, or out-of-town buyers who want a homebase in the city.

• Four story walk-up
• Hardwood floors
• Pets allowed
• Condo fees include heat and hot water

The condo association has a driveway that fits several cars on a first-come, first-serve basis I believe. You'll also want to get a city parking permit. In Cambridge a resident parking sticker is key - for a nominal annual fee the sticker enables you to park in resident parking spaces anywhere in the city.

Recent Condo Sales at 9 Ellery St Cambridge

Several condos sold in 2009 - a 450 sq.ft. condo for $252,000 and two one-bedroom condos closer to 600 sq.ft. that each sold for $325,000.

SEARCH FOR CAMBRIDGE CONDOS

Are you planning a move to Cambridge? Have questions about Cambridge condos? Give me a call or shoot me an email - I'd be delighted to help.

Nowadays many people talk about houses as investments and advise buyers not to get emotional about the home buying process. While I'm happy to work with buyers seeking to aquire real estate solely for its investment value, the truth is, buying a home to live in often is about emotions.

After all, when you buy a house to make it your home, you're charting the course for you and your family and friends. This house will be the place where you celebrate holidays, where your memories are formed, the place you come home to. The good and the bad - this will be where it happens for however long you live in your home. Your home will be your haven.

You'll care for your house. You'll put your own stamp on it. Inside and out you'll make it your own. And the house will make its mark on you. For ever after, the house will play a role in all your memories of the years you lived there.

To Make A House A Home: Four Generations of American Women and the Houses They Lived In by Jane Davison and Lesley Davison is a fascinating look at the central role that our homes play in our lives and how our view of home has changed through several generations.

To Make A House A Home is a 1994 reworking of the 1980 book The Fall of a Doll's House by Jane Davison. Davison's daughter Lesley has added vintage illustrations throughout the book and chapters of her own including "Generation of Renters, 1980 - 1994". That's a generation I can relate to as it closely mirrors my own renting years before I was able to finally buy my first house.

The book is part social history and commentary, part local memoir and history (Jane Davison grew up in Summit, New Jersey and lived in Cambridge and Boston in the 1960s and 1970s), and is greatly shaped by Jane Davison's feminist viewpoint. Publisher's Weekly described the earlier version of the book as a "classic history of the love-hate relationship between the American housewife and her place of residence." Lesley Davison's additions update her mother's viewpoints and the vintage photographs of people and their homes are priceless.

The chapters about Cambridge in the sixties and early seventies, are great fun to read for a look at Cambridge before real estate values went wild. My parents are of Jane Davison's generation but chose the suburbs when they bought their first house though my father had grown up in Cambridge. Many a time my mother has remarked "If only I knew about Cambridge and we had bought there instead" as young newlyweds. Instead my early experience of home were formed in the suburbs of Medfield and Concord and it was an adult that I moved to the city. Who would I be had I grown up in Cambridge? Somebody slightly different - or very different - I think. Where we live changes who we are and who we become in ways both subtle and significant.

To Make A House of Home is out of print but available online or at your local used bookstore.

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My bookcases are filled to overflowing with books - many of them about houses, real estate, and local history - I collect books about anyplace I've lived so have shelves lined with books about Cambridge, Arlington, Somerville, Concord, New Haven, New Hampshire and New England. Some of the books, many in fact, are out of print but many are of interest to those who sell houses, who love houses, or who are hoping to buy a house and want to know more about the history of a community. I'll be regularly featuring books from my shelves in future posts.