The Kendall Hotel, or The Kendall Hotel, is a

boutique hotel Boutique hotels are small-capacity Hotel, hotels that provide more personalized service than typical hotels. They typically have fewer than a hundred rooms, and are considered more "trendy" and "intimate", often due to their location in urban ar ...

on Main St. in the

Kendall Square Kendall Square is a neighborhood in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The square itself is at the intersection of the Main Street and Broadway. It also refers to the broad business district east of Portland Street, northwest of the Charl ...

area of

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census, ...

. It repurposed a

firehouse __NOTOC__ A fire station (also called a fire house, fire hall, firemen's hall, or engine house) is a structure or other area for storing firefighting apparatuses such as fire engines and related vehicles, personal protective equipment, fire hos ...

built in 1895: it was once the Engine 7 Firehouse.

The Telegraph ''The Telegraph'', ''Daily Telegraph'', ''Sunday Telegraph'' and other variant names are often names for newspapers. Newspapers with these titles include: Australia * The Telegraph (Adelaide), ''The Telegraph'' (Adelaide), a newspaper in Adelaid ...

's online review terms it a "gorgeous Victorian firehouse turned boutique hotel near buzzy Kendall Square" and asserts that its "Black Sheep restaurant is a gem". The building was originally designed to support horse-drawn fire-fighting equipment. It served in fire protection from 1895 to 1993, its role replaced by a modern fire station in Central Square. The building was renovated starting in 2000. Renovation involved moving the original three-story firehouse closer to the street, adding a seven-story tower behind, and restoring two

cupolas In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, usually dome-like structure on top of a building often crowning a larger roof or dome. Cupolas often serve as a roof lantern to admit light and air or as a lookout. The word derives, via Ital ...

. After opening in 2002, it was expanded in 2007 with the addition of a second seven-story tower. The hotel is a member of the

Historic Hotels of America Historic Hotels of America is a program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation that was founded in 1989 with 32 charter members; the program identifies hotels in the United States that have maintained authenticity, sense of place, and a ...

.In 2020 the hotel's webpages claimed that it is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

Kendall Hotel: About
, but that claim appears to be incorrect. It is not individually listed in

National Register of Historic Places listings in Cambridge, Massachusetts This is a list of sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This is intended to be a complete list of the properties and districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Cambridge, Massachuse ...

, nor as a contributing building in any historic district. Claims in travel websites appear to echo the hotel's own claim but seem not supported by

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all List ...

official mentions anywhere. It is not claimed to be NRHP-listed in any page of the Historic Hotels of America, which is a program of the

National Trust for Historic Preservation The National Trust for Historic Preservation is a privately funded, nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that works in the field of historic preservation in the United States. The member-supported organization was founded in 1949 ...

. The false claim of NRHP listing is continued in Kendall Hotel's webpage in 2021 and has been repeated in ''

'' in 2021. The owners have been honored by the Cambridge Historical Commission for the quality of their historic preservation efforts. The

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

in 2017 included "Kendall Hotel at the Engine 7 Firehouse" in a list of 23 American "hotel retrofits", as "part of a trend toward historic adaptive reuse that has travelers overnighting in former department stores, textile mills, an auto assembly plant and even a 19th-century jail.". In 2018,

Boeing The Boeing Company, or simply Boeing (), is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product support s ...

was to become a tenant next door.

Bradford incident

On 8 August 1910, Gamaliel Bradford VII (18 June 1888 – 8 August 1910), a descendant of

Pilgrim The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often vocalize it as ...

leader William Bradford, one of the first governors of the

Plymouth Colony Plymouth Colony (sometimes spelled Plimouth) was the first permanent English colony in New England from 1620 and the third permanent English colony in America, after Newfoundland and the Jamestown Colony. It was settled by the passengers on t ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

, and the son of biographer Gamaliel Bradford VI, checked into the Kendall Hotel around 10:15 AM, and told clerk John Hogan that he "needed to rest". At 10:30 AM, Bradford shot himself and was transported to nearby Framingham Hospital, where he died four hours later. It is believed that Bradford committed

suicide Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Risk factors for suicide include mental disorders, physical disorders, and substance abuse. Some suicides are impulsive acts driven by stress (such as from financial or ac ...

after a young woman who was engaged to another man refused to marry Bradford instead. Bradford was 22 at the time of his death.

Notes

References

{{reflist Historic Hotels of America Hotels in Massachusetts Cambridge, Massachusetts Buildings and structures completed in 1895