A communication transmitted from Yi-An Huang, City Manager, relative to a Preservation Restriction at 44 J.F. Kennedy Street

CAMBRIDGE HISTORICAL COMMISSION 831 Massachusetts Avenue, 2nd Fl., Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 E-mail: histcomm@cambridgema.gov URL: https://www.cambridgema.gov/Historic Telephone: [phone removed] Chandra Harrington, Chair; Elizabeth Lyster, Vice Chair; Charles Sullivan, Executive Director Joseph V. Ferrara, Gavin W. Kleespies, Paula A. Paris, Kyle Sheffield, Yuting Zhang, Members Florrie Darwin, Scott Kyle, Michael Rogove, Alternates July 29, 2025 To: Yi-An Huang, City Manager From: Charles Sullivan, Executive Director Re: 44 J.F. Kennedy Street Preservation Restriction for City Council Approval The graduate board of the Fox Club at 44 J.F. Kennedy Street is seeking City Council approval of a preservation restriction intended to protect significant interior and exterior features of the club building. The Fox Club is a large Colonial Revival style building designed by Guy Lowell in 1906 for the Digamma Club, as the Fox was originally known. The club’s eighteen rooms include a banquet hall, a dining room, a billiard room, and a library designed in the restrained style of the exterior but featuring a fox-themed décor. The architect, Guy Lowell (1870-1927), trained at Harvard, MIT, and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and returned to Boston in 1899. Among his many prominent commissions was Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, also undertaken in 1906. The Fox Club is a contributing building in the Harvard Square National Register District. Publicly-visible exterior features are protected by the Cambridge Historical Commission through the Harvard Square Conservation District. The proposed restriction will protect significant interior features and exterior features not visible from public ways. Pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 184, Sections 31, 32 and 33, the City Council must vote to approve the restriction in order for it to be valid in perpetuity. The Cambridge Historical Commission concurs that the Fox Club is historically significant for its architecture and its historical and cultural associations; that it qualifies for the protections of a perpetual preservation restriction under Chapter 184; and that the restriction will serve the public interest in a manner consistent with the purposes of the statute. On July 10, 2025, the Historical Commission voted unanimously to recommend that the City Council approve the proposed restriction. cc: Peter Wilcox, Fox Club Holdings LLC Brian Pfeiffer, Preservation Consultant Attachments