Though 513 Court Lane is considered one of the oldest surviving commercial buildings in Cambridge, the architecture is completely different from how it was in 1819, when a two-room frame office was built on the property. After 1892, it was expanded into a two-story structure and used as an insurance office. By 1916 the two or three offices next to it had been merged into it as one building. In 1949, the frame building was covered in brick.