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The Cambridge Historical Commission approved a proposal to redevelop the Harriet Jacobs House in a Thursday hearing, despite backlash over the size of the building.
The Jacobs House, which was run by Harriet Jacobs after she escaped from slavery, served as a boarding house for Harvard faculty and students in the late 1800s. The house has since been passed through multiple private owners and fallen into disrepair.
Developers proposed turning the property into a hotel and additional housing units, keeping a museum of Harriet Jacobs in the new building’s lobby. The proposed development would preserve the original house and add eight stories of residential property behind it.
The proposal has stalled in front of the Commission for nearly a year as residents repeatedly criticized the development for being too large. Many argued that the city should restore the house without the addition.
The house sits on the edge of the Harvard Square Conservation District, which has stricter guidelines on the allowed size of new construction and requires approval from the Commission before construction can begin.
Janet Jiang, who has owned the house for the last five years, said that Cambridge’s expensive real estate market posed a challenge to preserving the Jacobs House. Jiang hired CambridgeSeven, a local architecture firm, to begin redeveloping the property.
Jiang, CambridgeSeven, and other members of the development team met with the Commission last month, and faced backlash from abutting residents who felt the development was too close to their property. The architects returned to the Commission on Thursday with a plan to increase the distance between the building and its property line.
A group of neighbors living on Hilliard Street, which is on the backside of the Jacobs House, have strongly opposed the redevelopment — asking the Commission to adopt a set of guidelines to limit the allowed size of the development.
“Dwarfing the Harriet Jacobs House under an eight-story building is not the best way to honor her legacy,” Nicole Bryant, a Hilliard Street resident who spoke on behalf of neighbors, said in the Thursday hearing.
Jiang has refused to consider lowering the height and size of the building further.
“If we’re coming back for a smaller building, we should probably not continue,” Patrick W. Barrett, Jiang’s lawyer, said.
Though the Commission unanimously approved the project on Thursday, they must meet with the developers again to review the final proposal before construction can begin.
“We want to try to see if we can find some way to find a path forward, because we have to get to work,” Barrett said, “and either we have a project or we don’t.”
Correction: October 21, 2025
A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the architecture firm CambridgeSeven has refused to consider lowering the height and size of a proposed redevelopment of the Harriet Jacobs House further. In fact, decisions about the project’s dimensions are made by the developers, not by CambridgeSeven.
Clarification: October 21, 2025
A previous version of this article stated that CambridgeSeven met with the Cambridge Historical Commission last month. In fact, the firm attended the meeting along with Janet Jiang, Patrick W. Barrett, and collaborating architects Atelier Liu Yuyang Architects.
