At the New England Hospital for Women and Children, women doctors ran a hospital for the first time in New England and the second in the country. Cummings and Sears designed the two earliest structures, Cary Cottage and the Zakrzewska Building. A Stick Style building with a mansard roof, ornate ventilator, and stickwork porch, Cary Cottage was built as a maternity facility where women could be isolated in more sanitary conditions than were available in the typical wards of the period. Adjacent stands the original main building for the hospital, named in honor of Dr. Marie E. Zakrzewska, who founded the institution. Its picturesque treatment also features Stick Style elements as well as polychromatic brickwork. Both buildings reflect the prevailing theories of hospital design, emphasizing domestic scale and character and spacious verandahs for fresh air and sunlight. The two original buildings, symbols of the role of architecture in a patient's recovery, remain remarkably intact.
The complex includes later buildings added during the most important period of