Children from Newton Highlands first attended school in a simple wooden building of four rooms, but this temporary space was soon inadequate.

Plans began in the late 1880s for construction of a substantial schoolhouse to accommodate the growing numbers of children. Architects Henry Hartwell & William Richardson were commissioned to design the new school. They were inspired by the work of renowned architect Henry Hobson Richardson, recently deceased, who had established a wide reputation for designing substantial public buildings in stone and brick with distinctive features which came to be known as “Richardsonian Romanesque”, including the just completed Sever Hall at Harvard.

The school was named in honor of James F. C. Hyde, acknowledging his service to the city and in particular to the community of Newton Highlands. While the physical massing of the new school and the high sloping roof gave a severe impression, it also incorporated rounded archways and staircase windows, and the façade was lightened by geometric patterns laid in buff and red brickwork.

By the time the original Hyde School was dedicated in 1895, there were eight teachers, and 321 students in kindergarten through ninth grade. Rapid growth in the student population was occurring all over Newton. Hyde was the first in a group of 10 new schools built in the decade from 1895 to 1905.

By 1902 the population of the Highlands had increased so rapidly that the School Committee recommended “that a new building be built in the Hyde district at once.” The urgently needed second school building, just to the west of the original school, was designed by John Coolidge of Coolidge & Carson, in brick in a neo-classical symmetric style using with stone trim and ornamentation. This architect was also fulfilling commissions for academic buildings at Harvard and Wellesley College. The second Hyde School building originally housed technical training courses and a library. By the time it opened in 1908, the student body numbered 461, with sixteen teachers.

Seventy years later, with demographic changes underway, the school was on the verge of closing. School numbers in Newton had peaked in the late 1960s. You can see children in the 1976 class photo on the interpretive sign wearing sweatshirts saying “Save Our Hyde”, expressing their loyalty to the school and its community.

Sadly, a fire broke out in the roof of the original Hyde School building during school vacation on April 21, 1981, destroying parts of the roof and the auditorium on the top floor. After renovations it was converted to condominiums. Next door, the 1908 building was converted by the Newton Housing Authority to offer handicap-accessible apartments. Both buildings have successfully evolved to serve the community in new ways.

The Hyde School gymnasium, built in 1967, was transferred to the nonprofit Newton Highlands Development Corporation, which operates it as Newton’s only self-supporting community center.