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BEGINNING THE SEARCH FOR BEACON HILL/BACK BAY REAL ESTATE Beacon Hill (outlined in red on the map above): Bracketed by Cambridge Street, Tremont Street, Beacon Street, Arlington Street, and Storrow Drive, Beacon Hill offers an exquisite combination of early 1800's Georgian, Federal, and Greek Revival-style attached brick rowhouses. Hidden gardens, gas lamps, window boxes, wrought-iron railings, boot scrapers, and hitching posts are just a few of the features that adorn these architectural gems, some of which were designed by eminent architect, Charles Bulfinch, and his protégé, Asher Benjamin. To Bostonians, the Bulfinch masterpiece is still the golden-domed State House capitol building, sitting atop Beacon Hill and overlooking Boston Common. Residents consider Beacon Hill their own small town within a large, sophisticated urban setting. While most people associate Beacon Hill with wealth and privilege, the population is actually quite diverse. On the Hill's South Slope (outlined in green), the most prestigious addresses include Mount Vernon Street, Chestnut Street, Louisburg Square, and Beacon Street, where properties begin at $500 a square foot. Expect to pay $1,500,000 and more for a townhouse. On the North Slope, just a few short blocks away, handy to Massachusetts General Hospital, Suffolk University, Quincy Marketplace, and the financial district, lovely townhouses with period detail can still be found in the $1,000,000 range. (Two-bedroom condominiums, which make this area more affordable, now start at $450,000.) Back Bay (outlined in blue on the map): As Beacon Hill's population dwindled in the mid-1800's, tastes had clearly changed. Back Bay, a byproduct of the filled marsh that flanked Boston's Public Garden, soon became the most fashionable part of the city. Large-scale Victorian-style homes with 14-foot ceilings, mansard roofs, elaborate ornamentation, and strong French influences typified the Back Bay townhouse. Because the area was far better planned than Beacon Hill, the street grid is more logical and easy to understand. Squared off by Storrow Drive, Arlington Street, Boylston Street and Massachusetts Avenue, Back Bay's cross-streets are alphabetical: Arlington, Berkeley, Clarendon, Dartmouth, etc. Main boulevard Commonwealth Avenue, which Winston Churchill compared to Paris' Champs Elysee, still exudes elegance and grandeur. Newbury Street is Boston's Fifth Avenue, boasting stores like Burberry's, Cartier's, and Brooks Brothers. Prices reflect this glory. When available, single family Back Bay townhouses start at $2,000,000; but due to their sheer size, few remain in-tact today. Of necessity, condominiums are the home of choice, beginning at $600,000 for a two-bedroom unit.
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