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Martin Luther King Dined Here: 21 Holyoke and Its Record

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The townhouse at 21 Holyoke Street in the South End is impressive enough: 4,410 square feet; 14 rooms, including five bedrooms and four and a half baths; bones in the Victorian era from which it gets its style; an open kitchen with a six-burner stove top; two tandem parking spaces; and a roof deck with wide city views.

And, in a deal that closed Jan. 11 and after having been listed for $3,900,000, the townhouse traded for $3,823,803—or just over $867 a square foot. That's the most expensive price paid for a South End single-family between 3,100 and 5,700 square feet in the last two years, according to listing broker Shelagh Brennan of Cabot & Company.

Impressive enough, again, but what really seals 21 Holyoke's gobsmackingness is that Martin Luther King Jr. dined there while a graduate student at Boston University in the early 1950s, a guest of its long-time owners. He lived in an apartment on nearby St. Botolph Street in the South End and, before that, at 397 Massachusetts Avenue in Arlington; and, presumably like all grad students since time immemorial, appreciated the free food.
· Listing: 21 Holyoke Street [Cabot & Company]
· Our Red Carpet Real Estate archives [Curbed Boston]