The Boston Redevelopment Authority Board authorized $200,000 to assist the nonprofit Historic Boston Inc. in turning the historic Alvah Kittredge House in Roxbury into market-rate and affordable homes.

Once a grand estate symbolic of Roxbury and Boston’s growth following the America Revolution, the Greek Revival style Kittredge House, at 10 Linwood St., was built by furniture maker Alvah Kittredge in 1836. It is a rare surviving example of this period and architecture in Boston.

Long in disrepair and deteriorated almost beyond recovery, the grand home was targeted by Historic Boston Inc. for restoration and reuse for much-needed housing in the neighborhood.

The funding voted helps significantly to close a financing gap in the $4.7 million project, the cost of which has grown considerably greater because of more structural decay than had been previously discovered.

"The restoration of the Alvah Kittredge House is a wonderful investment that will bring even more energy to this part of Roxbury," Mayor Thomas M. Menino said in a statement. "I applaud the efforts of Historic Boston, an important ally in the effort to preserve irreplaceable properties in our city."

Kittredge house will be transformed into five units of housing, three of them market-rate and two affordable at 80 percent of area median income. The BRA’s funding will not only help reverse severe blight but also ensure that the two units will be affordable.

The current schedule is to raise the necessary funds by early next year and to begin construction work in the spring. The cost of restoring Kittredge House was originally thought to be about $2.8 million.