14 Best Sights in Boston, Massachusetts

If you like nothing better than to imagine how the other half lives, you'll suffer no shortage of old homes to sigh over in Boston's Back Bay. Most, unfortunately, are off-limits to visitors, but there's no law against gawking from the outside. Stroll Commonwealth, Beacon, and Marlborough streets for the best views. For details on lectures, films, and other events offered in some of these respected institutions, see the free, biweekly Improper Bostonian and the Boston Globe's art section or calendar listings.

This charming yellow 18th-century, gambrel-roof Colonial once belonged to the Loyalist William Brattle. He moved to Boston in 1774 to escape the patriots' anger, then left in 1776 with the British troops. From 1831 to 1833 the house was the residence of Margaret Fuller, feminist author and editor of The Dial. Today it's the office of the Cambridge Center for Adult Education, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Built in 1712, this house (whose name rhymes with "fluff") is now the only local survivor of its era aside from Old North Church, which stands nearby. Picture the streets lined with houses such as this, with an occasional grander Georgian mansion and some modest wooden-frame survivors of old Boston's many fires—this is what the North End looked like when Paul Revere was young. Today, Clough House is home to two new attractions: The Printing Office of Edes & Gill, which offers visitors live colonial-printing demonstrations, and Heritage Goods + Gifts, a shop dedicated to New England artisans and small businesses with a special focus on locally made products from BIPOC- and women-owned businesses.

Shortly after its construction in 1767, this three-story Georgian house was abandoned by its owner, colonial governor Thomas Oliver. Also known as the Oliver-Gerry-Lowell House, it was home to the accomplished Lowell family for two centuries. Elmwood is now the Harvard University president's residence, ever since student riots in 1969 drove president Nathan Pusey from his house in Harvard Yard.

Through the foresight of an eccentric bon vivant, this house provides an authentic glimpse into daily life in Boston's Victorian era. One of the first Back Bay residences (1859), the Gibson House is relatively modest in comparison with some of the grand mansions built during the decades that followed; yet its furnishings, from its 1795 Willard clock to the raised and gilded wallpaper to the multipiece faux-bamboo bedroom set, seem sumptuous to modern eyes. Unlike other Back Bay houses, the Gibson family home has been preserved with all its Victorian fixtures and furniture intact. The house serves as the meeting place for the New England chapter of the Victorian Society in America; it was also used as an interior for the 1984 Merchant Ivory film The Bostonians. The museum is only open to the public by hourly guided tours Wednesday through Sunday 1 pm to 3 pm, and Thursday  3 pm to 5 pm through advance ticket purchase only.

If the name sounds familiar, it's because a Beacon Hill home bears the same name. This is the first of three houses built for Harrison Gray Otis, Boston's third mayor and a prominent citizen and developer. It's owned and operated by Historic New England, an organization that owns and maintains dozens of properties throughout the region. The furnishings, textiles, wall coverings, and even the interior paint, specially mixed to match old samples, are faithful to the Federal period, circa 1790–1810. You may be surprised to see the bright and vivid colors favored in those days. Otis lived here only four years before moving to more sumptuous digs, also designed by Charles Bulfinch, on Beacon Hill. A second-floor room brings to life the home's days as a late-19th-century boardinghouse, and a display describes the "champoo baths" of former resident Mrs. Mott. From May through October, Historic New England runs a Beacon Hill walking tour from the house. It highlights the two sides of Beacon Hill, taking visitors past grandiose mansions and more modest townhomes. Along the way, you'll pass the African Meeting House, Louisburg Square, and the Boston Common. The $15 price includes admission to the Otis house.

Brattle Street's seven houses known as "Tory Row" were once occupied by wealthy families linked by friendship, if not blood. Portions of this house may have been built as early as 1636. In 1737 it was purchased by John Vassall Sr.; four years later he sold it to his younger brother Henry and his wife Penelope. It was used as a hospital during the Revolution, and the traitor Dr. Benjamin Church was held here as a prisoner. The house was remodeled during the 19th century. It's now a private residence, but from the street you can view the Colonial home with its black-shuttered windows and multiple dormers.

Now headquarters of the History Cambridge historical society, this is one of two Tory-era homes on Brattle Street fully open to the public; it's one of the older houses in Cambridge. The Emerson family gave it to the society in 1957. Built between 1685 and 1690, the house has been remodeled at least six times, but has maintained much of the original structure. The downstairs is elegantly, although sparsely, appointed with period books, portraits, and wallpaper. An upstairs bedroom has been furnished with period antiques, some belonging to the original residents. Tours are offered by appointment only. Check the website for special events including public art installations, and to see a virtual tour of the house.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the poet whose stirring tales of the village blacksmith, Evangeline, Hiawatha, and Paul Revere's midnight ride thrilled 19th-century America, once lived in this elegant Georgian mansion. One of several original Tory Row homes on Brattle Street, the house was built in 1759 by John Vassall Jr., and George Washington lived (and slept!) here during the Siege of Boston from July 1775 to April 1776. Longfellow first boarded here in 1837 and later received the house as a gift from his father-in-law on his marriage to Frances Appleton, who burned to death here in an accident in 1861. For 45 years Longfellow wrote his famous verses here and filled the house with the exuberant spirit of his literary circle, which included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Charles Sumner, an abolitionist senator. Longfellow died in 1882, but his presence in the house lives on—from the Longfellow family furniture to the wallpaper to the books on the shelves (many the poet's own).

The home is preserved and run by the National Park Service; guided tours are offered Memorial Day through October. The formal garden is the perfect place to relax; the grounds are open year-round. Longfellow Park, across the street, is the place to stand to take photos of the house. The park was created to preserve the view immortalized in the poet's "To the River Charles."

The only Mt. Vernon Street home open to the public, the Nichols House was built in 1804 and is attributed to Charles Bulfinch. It became the lifelong home of Rose Standish Nichols (1872–1960), Beacon Hill eccentric, philanthropist, peace advocate, and one of the first female landscape designers. Nichols inherited the Victorian furnishings, but she added a number of Colonial-style pieces to the mix, and the result is a delightful mélange of styles. To see the house, you must take a guided tour.

The stately Federal-style manor on Cambridge Street was designed by Charles Bulfinch for former Boston mayor and lawyer Harrison Gray Otis. Today, the National Historic Landmark serves as the headquarters for the heritage organization Historic New England, and visitors can stop in for guided tours that offer insight into wealthy domestic life during the early 1800s.

Originally on the site was the parsonage of the Second Church of Boston, home to the Rev. Increase Mather, the Second Church's minister. Mather's house burned in the great fire of 1676, and the house that Revere was to occupy was built on its location about four years later, nearly 100 years before Revere's 1775 midnight ride through Middlesex County. Revere owned it from 1770 until 1800, although he lived there for only 10 years and rented it out for the next two decades. Pre-1900 photographs show it as a shabby warren of storefronts and apartments. The clapboard sheathing is a replacement, but 90% of the framework is original; note the Elizabethan-style overhang and leaded windowpanes. A few Revere furnishings are on display here, and just gazing at his silverwork—much more of which is displayed at the Museum of Fine Arts—brings the man alive. Special events are scheduled throughout the year, many designed with children in mind, such as role play by characters dressed in period costume serving apple-cider cake and other Colonial-era goodies, a silversmith practicing his trade, a dulcimer player entertaining a crowd, or a military-reenactment group in full period regalia.

The immediate neighborhood also has Revere associations. The little cobblestone park in North Square is named after Rachel Revere, his second wife, and the adjacent brick Pierce-Hichborn House once belonged to relatives of Revere. The garden connecting the Revere House and the Pierce-Hichborn House is planted with flowers and medicinal herbs favored in Revere's day, but is sadly closed for tours. This is Freedom Trail stop 12.

On the Harvard University side of Harvard Square stands the Wadsworth House, a yellow clapboard structure built in 1726 as a home for Harvard presidents. It served as the first Massachusetts headquarters for George Washington, who arrived on July 2, 1775, just a day before he took command of the Continental Army. The building traded presidents in for students (such as Ralph Waldo Emerson) and visiting preachers as its boarders, and today, it houses Harvard's general offices.

Now a modest but engaging house museum, this 1808 Federal-style structure was designed by Asher Benjamin. From 1845 to 1859, it was the home of noted historian William Hickling Prescott, and today it's the headquarters for the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Guided tours venture through rooms furnished with period furniture, including Prescott's former study with his desk and "noctograph," which helped the nearly blind scholar write. Fun fact: Prescott's secret staircase allowed him to escape into his study when bored by guests in the parlor.