Why visit
The oldest surviving house in downtown Boston (built around 1680) is also its most storied doorway: Paul Revere left from here on the night of April 18, 1775, to warn Lexington that British troops were moving - the midnight ride every American schoolchild memorizes. The self-guided visit is short, fifteen to thirty minutes through low-beamed period rooms with costumed interpreters answering questions, and admission is modest - which is exactly right for its role as a Freedom Trail waypoint in the North End rather than a destination museum. Children respond to the human scale: a real family's small house, not a monument. The courtyard offers a breather from Hanover Street's bustle, and the cannoli institutions wait two minutes away as the visit's natural dessert. Lines move quickly except summer peak afternoons.
