Toward the west end of High Street near the Common stand two very unusual Federal-period clapboard houses, known by their configurations and colors as the White and the Yellow Diamond houses. Both feature extraordinary corner entrances, for which no precedent exists in the Boston area. Housewright Eliphalet Baker first erected the White Diamond House for himself. Prior to a Greek Revival–style remodeling, it looked like the Yellow Diamond House, with its hipped roof and Federal-style doorway taken from an Asher Benjamin builder's guide. The gable roof and broad pedimented doorway of the White Diamond House were added in the 1830s or 1840s in an effort to modernize it.