Reception House, 583 Mount Auburn Street
1870 Nathaniel J. Bradlee, architect
Extant with modifications

The reception house was built in 1870 directly across from the main gate as part of a growing concern for visitor comfort in the mid-nineteenth century.  It featured a room where visitors could rest and wait for trolleys, and for a time there was even a refreshment concession.  It also housed the superintendent’s office from the early 1870s until the administration building was completed in 1897.  After that, the property was leased for a number of years until it was sold around 1928.  The exterior retains a high degree of integrity, even though it has not been owned by the Cemetery for a number of years.

Today it is a privately owned memorial supplier, “Mt. Auburn Memorials,” which is part of W.C. Caniff & Sons (Roslindale, MA).

Mt. Auburn Memorials, 2011

This text is modified from the Master Plan: Volume II – Historic Landscape Report, prepared by Shary Page Berg, Cambridge, MA, in Collaboration with The Halvorson Company, Inc., Boston, MA. 1993.