About Kemp Place
Historic Architecture, Architecture, Interesting Places, Other Buildings And Structures
The Kemp Place and Barn form a historic farmstead at 186 Summer Avenue in Reading, Massachusetts. The main house is a 2 1⁄2-story Italianate wood-frame structure, with an L-shaped cross-gable footprint and clapboard siding. Its roofline is studded with paired brackets, its windows have "eared" or shouldered hoods, and there is a round-arch window in the front gable end. The porch wraps around the front to the side, supported by Gothic style pierced-panel posts. The square cupola has banks of three round-arch windows on each side. It is one of Reading's more elaborate Italianate houses, and is one of the few of the period whose cupola has survived.