<p>The Carter Mansion is a historic house located at 89 Woburn Street in Reading, Massachusetts.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The 2.5 story wood frame house was built in 1802 by Daniel Chute, owner of one of the first shoemaking businesses in Reading. Originally a Federal style building, it was successively refashioned during the 19th century as architectural tastes changed. In the 1850s it was modified with Italianate styling with the addition of carved window surrounds and the bracketed porch. In the 1870s the central gable was added to the front facade, giving the house a Queen Anne flavor. Around the same time an addition was added to the rear of the house. These later works were done by William Carter, son of Samuel Carter, owner of a local steam-powered mill who had married into the Chute family. The younger Carter had the family name engraved into the granite stairs at the front of the property.</p><br>
<p>The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.</p><br>
<p>The Charles Manning House is a historic house at 145 Salem Street in Reading, Massachusetts. It is a -story wood-frame house, three bays wide, with a front-facing gable roof, clapboard siding, and a granite foundation. Built c. 1850, it has well-preserved Greek Revival details. It has a typical three-bay side-hall plan, with corner pilasters and a main entry surround consisting of long sidelight windows framed by pilasters and topped by an entablature. The windows are topped by shallow pedimented lintels. Charles Manning was a longtime Reading resident and part of its woodworking community, building parlor desks. Reading&#39;s Manning Street is named for him.</p><br>
<p>The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.</p><br>
<p>The Common Historic District is a historic district encompassing the civic and institutional heart of Reading, Massachusetts. The district is centered on the town common, at the intersection of Main and Salem Streets. The common has been communally owned since at least 1737, with the original burying ground  to the north. In 1769 the area&#39;s first meeting house  was built, giving the area a sense of identity separate from portions of Reading that would later be set off as Wakefield and North Reading. Since then the area has become a focal point for religious and civic institutions in the town.</p><br>
<p>The most prominent feature of the district is the First Congregational Church, a 1913 replica of an 1817 church designed by Asher Benjamin that was destroyed by fire. The other church in the district is the stone Gothic Revival Christian Science Church on the west side of the common. The west side also includes the major municipal buildings: the library and town hall are brick Georgian Revival buildings dating to the early 20th century, as does the similarly-styled old high school building.</p><br>
<p>There are also a few houses in the district, although a number of the older houses originally within its boundaries were moved to make way for some of the municipal buildings. One of the older houses is the 1817 Federal style house and shop of Thomas Pratt, located at the northeastern corner of the district. There is a row of 19th-century houses along Harnden and Salem Streets on the east side of the district.</p><br>
<p>The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.</p><br>
<p>The Edwin Bassett House is a historic house at 115 Prescott Street in Reading, Massachusetts. It is a well-preserved Greek Revival house, built in 1850 by Edwin Bassett, the first Reading shoemaker to install a McKay stitching machine, a device that revolutionized and led to the industrialization of what was before that a cottage industry. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The Bassett House is set on the north side of Prescott Street, a residential through street to the west of Reading&#39;s central business district. Facing south, it is a 2-1/2 story wood frame structure, three bays wide, with a front-gable roof and clapboard siding. Its Greek Revival features include corner pilasters and a wide frieze that encircles the house, and a fully pedimented gable, which is not usually found on period houses in Reading. A single-story hip-roofed porch extends across the front facade, supported by Doric columns. The house follows a typical side hall plan; its entry is flanked by flat pilasters.</p><br>
<p>Prescott Street was laid out in 1845 on what had previously been farmland. This house was built in 1850 by Edwin Bassett, a maker of shoes for children and infants, a common product for local shoemakers in what was then a cottage industry. Bassett was the first in Reading to install a McKay stitching machine, significantly improving the process by which shoes were made. The machine had a revolutionizing effect in Reading, where the process of shoemaking would become increasingly industrialized.</p><br>
<p>The Ephraim Weston House is a historic house at 229 West Street in Reading, Massachusetts. It is incorrectly listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Ephrain Weston House, at 224 West Street. It was built in the early years of the 19th century by Ephraim Weston, a local real estate developer and businessman; he operated a local general store and a shoe manufacturing business, one of the early such businesses in the town. It is a two-story wood frame structure, with a hip roof and two chimneys. The main facade faces south , and has a single-story porch extending across its width, supported by square posts. The building corners are pilastered, and a single-story bay projects from the west side. The house is locally distinctive as a rare Federal period house with a hip roof and later applied Italianate styling.</p><br>
<p>The Francis Brooks House is a historic house at 78-80 Prescott Street in Reading, Massachusetts. Built in the late 1880s, it is one of Reading&#39;s finest examples of Queen Anne/Stick style Victorian architecture. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The Francis Brooks House stands in a large residential area southwest of downtown Reading, on the south side of Prescott Street between Pratt Street and Sunnyside Avenue. It is a 2-1/2 story wood frame structure, with a front-facing gabled roof and clapboarded exterior. Its main facade is nominally three bays wide, although a fourth bay is created by side projection that the porch wraps around to meet; it is a product of the house&#39;s conversion to a duplex. There are entranceways in the two right bays and windows in those on the left. The porch has bracketed turned posts in the Victorian style, and a hip roof. The second floor has three windows, and the cornice below the gable is adorned with paired brackets. The gable is filled by a pair of sash windows, and there is an elaborate Stick style sunburst pattern of woodwork at the gable peak. Similar patterned woodwork is found on the small gable over the porch stairs, and in side-facing gables.</p><br>
<p>The land on which this house was built was farmland owned by the locally prominent Prescott family, and was platted for subdivision in the 1880s. It was built sometime before 1889 by Francis E. Brooks, a local entrepreneur involved in a range of businesses. Brooks was, among other business pursuits, owner of the Hill Brush Company, a producer of "magnetic" hair brushes, an wood engraver, and bicycle salesman.</p><br>
<p>The George Batchelder House is a historic house at 127–129 Franklin Street in Reading, Massachusetts. Built in 1825, it is a prominent local example of Federal period architecture. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. It currently houses professional offices.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The George Batchelder House stands in northern Reading, on the north side of Franklin Street just east of its junction with Main Street (Massachusetts Route 28). The house was originally oriented facing Main Street, and was moved a short distance to its present location in 1947. It is a 2-1/2 story wood frame structure, with a side low-pitch gable roof, two interior chimneys, and a clapboarded exterior. The house exhibits a few more high-style Federal period details than are typical for surviving houses in Reading of the period, including an elaborate entrance surround with tapered pilasters, sidelight windows, and a half-oval starburst louver above.</p><br>
<p>The house was built in 1825 on land that had long belonged to the locally prominent Batchelder family. George Batchelder, for whom it was built, grew up in the Nathaniel Batchelder House, a short way east of this house. This house originally faced Main Street, with a barn across that street. The barn is since demolished, and the house was moved in 1947 to make room for a gas station.</p><br>
<p>The Reading Public Library is located at 64 Middlesex Avenue in Reading, Massachusetts. Previously known as the Highland School, the two-story brick-and-concrete Renaissance Revival building was designed by architect Horace G. Wadlin and built in 1896–97. The building served the towns public school needs until 1981. It is the towns most architecturally distinguished school building. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984, the year it was converted for use as the library.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The Highland School building is set on the south side of Middlesex Avenue in the Reading Highlands area of Reading, west of the town&#39;s central business district. It is a two-story brick building with concrete and granite trim elements, a hip roof, and a high brick foundation separated from the body by a band of egg-and-dart molding. The body of the building is in pale yellow brick, while the foundation bricks are a darker reddish color. The front facade has projecting sections at each corner, and a center section that projects a shorter distance, but is fronted by a hip-roofed porte-cochere, supported by paired Ionic columns set brick piers connected by a wooden balustrade. The porte-cochere shelters the main entrance, which is recessed under a round-arch opening and accessed by stairs. The second level of the center projection has a bank of five round-arch windows.</p><br>
<p>The Reading Highlands area was platted for residential development in the 1870s, and this school was built in 1896-97 to provide educational facilities to that area. The building was designed by the prominent local architect Horace G. Wadlin. The school was at first used for grades 4-8, and the junior high school occupied the first floor between 1915 and 1927. The school was closed in 1981, An expansion and rehabilitation of the building is planned for 2015.</p><br>
<p>11 Beach Street in Reading, Massachusetts is a modest Queen Anne cottage, built c. 1875-1889 based on a published design. Its first documented owner was Emily Ruggles, a prominent local businesswoman and real estate developer. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>11 Beach Street is located in a residential area east of downtown Reading, on the southwest side of the short street. Its immediate neighbor to the house, #17, is of substantially similar construction. It is a 1-1/2 story wood frame structure, with a front-facing gable roof. Its front facade is three bays wide, with the entrance in the rightmost bay, sheltered by a shed-roof porch supported by turned columns. The attic half-story has two sash windows, and there is Stick style woodwork at the peak of the gable. Photos from a 1980 survey show fish-scale shingles and applied woodwork on the gable wall around and above the attic windows</p><br>
<p>The house was built sometime in the 1880s as a speculative venture by Emily Ruggles, a prominent local businesswoman who operated a dry goods store and bought land on Beach Street for development in 1875. This house and the one adjacent were the first houses she had built, and appear to have been based on widely published architectural patterns. Her venture into real estate was unsuccessful. In the early 20th century, a resident of the house was Oscar Lowande, a prominent period circus performer.</p><br>
<p>1177 Main Street in Reading, Massachusetts, is a well-preserved and prominent local example of transitional Greek Revival-Italianate house. It was built sometime before 1854 by John Nichols, and probably served as a farmhouse. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>It is located in northern Reading, on the east side of Main Street (Massachusetts Route 28, a major artery), between its junctions with Brentwood and Fairchild Drives. The lot it is set backs onto Pearl Street, which follows a more undulating north-south route than Main Street. In front of the house are a series of granite posts, which originally supported a rail fence. The house is 2-1/2 stories in height, of wood frame construction, and has a gabled roof and clapboarded exterior. The gable ends of the roof have no returns, and it has a broad cornice. The first-floor front windows are full-length, and are topped by shallow pediments. The full-width front porch is supported by paired columns. An ell extends to the left, joining the house to a garage.</p><br>
<p>The house was built by John Nichols, a member of the locally prominent Nichols family, whose ancestral homestead originally stood nearby. It was built sometime before 1854, the year it first appears on local maps. Given the rural character of the area at the time of its construction, Nichols was probably a farmer.</p><br>
<p>129 High Street in Reading, Massachusetts is a well-preserved, modestly scaled Queen Anne Victorian house. Built sometime in the 1890s, it typifies local Victorian architecture of the period, in a neighborhood that was once built out with many similar homes. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>129 High Street is located northwest of downtown Reading, on the northeast side of High Street between Dudley and Mount Vernon Streets. It is a 2-1/2 story wood-frame structure, with a front-facing gabled roof and mostly clapboarded exterior. Smaller gabled sections project to each side, that on the left side rectangular in shape, the one on the right above a two-story polygonal window bay. The dominant features of the front facade are a central second-floor balcony, and single-story semicircular projections with conical roofs at the outer bays. The right projection is a porch, with turned posts and balusters. The left bay is enclosed. Both the left bay and the skirt below the porch are finished in square tooth-cut shingling. The second-floor porch also has turned posts and balusters, the posts topped by round newels. In the attic gable is a projecting oriel window, its roof covered with shingles that extend across the decreasing width of the gable peak. At the very top of the peak, the shingles are again cut with square teeth. A period carriage house, with a distinctive pyramidal roof capped by a square cupola, now serves as a garage.</p><br>
<p>The neighborhood where the house was built was, as late as the 1870s, part of a larger country estate. It was then subdivided and developed as a residential commuter suburb for middle and upper class workers who commuted to Boston for work.</p><br>
<p>16 Mineral Street in Reading, Massachusetts is a well-preserved Second Empire cottage. It was built c. 1874 and probably moved to its present location not long afterward, during a building boom in that part of the town. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>Mineral Street is located in a residential area west of downtown Reading, running roughly east-west between High and Prospect Streets. It is named for a failed business venture to develop a nearby spring commercially. Number 16 is located near its eastern end, on the south side between High and Vine Streets. It is a 1-1/2 story wood frame structure, with a mansard roof providing a full second story. The steep part of the roof is pierced by gable dormers with octagonal hood moldings. It is three bays wide, with its front entry in the leftmost bay. The front entry porch is Italianate in style, with square chamfered columns. A polygonal bay projects from one of the bays on the right side of the main block. The house is enlarged by extensions to the rear.</p><br>
<p>The house was built in the early 1870s, when this part of Reading was undergoing a housing boom. The Boston and Maine Railroad, which Mineral Street crosses west of this house, was built through the area in 1870, and set off a building boom of housing for workers who commuted to Boston by rail. It may have been built by Timothy Temple, a builder active in the area at the time.</p><br>
<p>206 West Street is historic house located in Reading, Massachusetts. It is locally significant as a well-preserved example of a Greek Revival cottage.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>Its date of construction is uncertain, but appears to fall within the period of Greek Revival popularity in Reading, between 1831 and 1857. The house has side gables (unlike the more typical Greek Revival front gable forms), with a gabled dormer above the center entry. The door is flanked by full-length sidelight windows and pilasters, which support a tall entablature. The house is believed to be associated with J.B. Leathe, a local shop owner and civic leader.</p><br>
<p>The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 19, 1984.</p><br>
<p>26 Center Avenue in Reading, Massachusetts is an architecturally eclectic cottage, with a mix of Greek Revival, Gothic Revival, and Italianate features. Built c. 1854-1875, it is a rare surviving remnant of a residential subdivision once dubbed "Mudville" for the condition of its unpaved roads. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The house at 26 Center Avenue is located in a residential area southwest of downtown Reading, on the south side of Center Street near its junction with Maple Avenue. It is 1-1/2 stories in height, of wood frame construction, and resting on a brick foundation set on an artificially raised mound. This latter feature was one commonly used during Reading&#39;s real estate development during the Greek Revival period. Its front facade is three bays wide, with the main entrance in the rightmost bay, framed by sidelight windows, pilasters, and a corniced entablature. Survey photos of the building in 1980 show jigsawn vergeboard on the front gable and side eaves, a Gothic feature, and bracketed and corniced surrounds on the front windows; these features have either been removed or covered over.</p><br>
<p>Based on stylistic analysis, the house was built sometime between about 1854 and 1875 as worker housing. It was part of a residential subdivision created by developer Amos Cummings in 1854. Cummings loaned workers money with which they could build houses, and then collected rent or other payments to recoup his investment. The scheme failed in the Panic of 1857, leaving a network of unpaved roads that became muddy when rains flooded the area. This gave rise to the name "Mudville", which was applied to the area for many years. Residents were eventually able to improve the neighborhood, and it is no longer known by that name.</p><br>
<p>322 Haven Street in Reading, Massachusetts is well preserved cottage with Gothic and Italianate features. Built sometime before 1889, its use of even modest Gothic features is unusual in Reading, where the Gothic Revival was not particularly popular. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The house at 322 Haven Street is located in a residential area just east of downtown Reading, on the north side of Haven Street between Elliott and Village Streets. It is a small 1-1/2 story wood frame structure, with a front-facing gabled roof, clapboarded exterior, and brick foundation. It has cornices and pilasters that are reminiscent of Greek Revival styling, but the door hood is distinctly Italianate in style, and there is Gothic bargeboard decoration in the front gable. To the right of the entrance is a polygonal bay window topped by a flared hip roof, similar to the one on the small porch sheltering the entrance.</p><br>
<p>The house was built sometime between 1876 and 1889, based on analysis of maps of the area from that time. It is unusual in the town for exhibiting any Gothic features at all, because the Gothic Revival was not very popular in Reading; this is one of the town&#39;s few surviving examples. At the time of its construction, Haven Street was a private way passing through a lumber yard. It was accepted as a town road by 1912.</p><br>
<p>The House at 42 Salem Street in Reading, Massachusetts is a transitional Greek Revival-Italianate house. Built sometime before 1854, its gable end faces the street, with the door on the left bay of three, a typical Greek Revival side hall layout. The doorway is topped by a heavy Italianate hood. The windows have shallow pedimented lintels, and the left facade has a projecting square bay. The house was occupied for many years by S. H. Dinsmore, a cabinetmaker who originally worked from a shop in the rear of the property and later moved to a larger space  a short way down Salem Street. The house is typical of small industry that developed along Salem Street in the second half of the 19th century.</p><br>
<p>The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.</p><br>
<p>77 Howard Street in Reading, Massachusetts is an excellent example of a well preserved Queen Anne Victorian house. It was built in the 1890s, during the town&#39;s growth as a railroad suburb of Boston. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>77 Howard Street is located in southwestern Reading, on the north side of Howard Street between West Street and Sigbee Avenue. The neighborhood in which it stands was, at the time of its construction, called "Scotland Hill" after a group of Scottish immigrants who lived and socialized nearby. The house is a 2-1/2 story wood frame structure; although it has a basically rectangular massing, it has a complex appearance, with a turret on the left, bay windows on the front facade, and a large front gable on the right side of the hipped roof. The gable is decorated with scalloped shingles and has a small recessed window above a projecting oriel window. The front porch has bracketed turned columns and delicate balusters, and a spindled valance.</p><br>
<p>The house was built in the 1890s, as part of a building boom in which Reading was transformed into a railroad suburb of Boston. The area was previously farmland, on which paper streets had been platted sometime before 1893. It was developed to appeal to middle-class workers commuting to Boston.</p><br>
<p>The James Nichols House is a historic house at 273 Pearl Street in Reading, Massachusetts. Built c. 1795, this 1-1/2 story gambrel-roofed house is built in a vernacular Georgian style, and is a rare local example of the style. The house was built by a local shoemaker and farmer who was involved in a religious dispute that divided the town. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The Nichols House is set on the east side of Pearl Street at its junction with Wakefield Street, in what is now a rural-suburban area of northern Reading, opposite Forest Glen Cemetery. Facing south, the 1-1/2 story wood frame structure is five bays wide, with a large central chimney and a gambrel roof that slopes toward the back in a saltbox configuration. A "Beverly dodge" projection extends from the back half of the west side, with a shed-roof sloping to the rear. Decorative elements are minimal, with a simple door treatment and sash windows that extend up to the cornice. There is a late 19th century Queen Anne style carriage house on the property east of the house.</p><br>
<p>When this house was built c. 1795, Pearl Street was a major north-south route running from Reading to Andover. It was built by James Nichols, who engaged in the locally significant business of shoe making, an activity he would have performed on this property, selling his product to a merchant in the town center. Nichols is known to have been at the center of a religious controversy whose details are poorly documented. He is known to have been excommunicated from the South Parish Church, and to have later joined the North Parish in what is now North Reading.</p><br>
<p>The Jerry Nichols Tavern is an historic house at 51 Mill Street in Reading, Massachusetts. It is a -storey wood-frame structure, five bays wide, with a side gable roof, central chimney, and clapboard siding. The main entrance is flanked by pilasters and topped by an entablature. The oldest portion of the house was built in 1785 by Jeremiah Nichols, a Revolutionary War veteran, farmer, and shoemaker. This property was where Reading&#39;s minute companies drilled prior to the American Revolutionary War, and where its powder magazine was kept. The building was expanded 1810-13, and had by 1830 been adapted as a tavern and stage coach stop. In 1824 it was bought by Rev. Peter Sanborn, in whose family it remained into the 1940s.</p><br>
<p>The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.</p><br>
<p>The Joseph Bancroft House is a historic house at 101 Lowell Street in Reading, Massachusetts. Built in the early 1830s, it is a prominent local example of Federal period architecture. It was built for a member of the locally prominent Bancroft family, who inherited a large tract of land in the area. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The Joseph Bancroft House stands on the north side of Lowell Street (Massachusetts Route 129), at northeast corner of its junction with Bancroft Avenue. It is a 2-1/2 story wood frame structure, set back from the street on a lot that is fronted by a low fieldstone retaining wall. The roof is gabled, and the exterior is clad in wooden clapboards. The main facade is five bays wide and symmetrical, with a central entrance framed by pilasters and a corniced entablature. There is no window above the entrance, and most windows are placed slightly lower than is typical for the Federal period. A single-story ell extends to the right of the main block with a dormered gable roof.</p><br>
<p>The house was built on a large tract of land inherited by Joseph Bancroft. It may have been built around the time of Bancrofts marriage in 1833, and does not appear on an 1830 map of the town. The Bancroft family owned most of the Reading Highlands for many years; the area south of Lowell Street was inherited by Josephs brother.</p><br>
<p>The Joseph Damon House is a historic house at 178 South Street in Reading, Massachusetts. Built about 1754, this -story wood-frame house is good local example of a Georgian colonial house with later Federal period alterations. It also demonstrates a typical pattern of shared ownership by multiple descendants of one of its owners. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The Damon house is set on the north side of South Street in a residential area of southwestern Reading. Facing south, it is a -story wood-frame structure, five bays wide, with a side-gable roof, clapboard siding, granite foundation, and twin interior chimneys. An integral leanto extends the building the south, extending west beyond the edge of the main block. An ell extends further to the rear, resting on a rubblestone foundation. The main facade has a central entry with flanking pilasters and an entablature. Windows are arranged symmetrically, but not evenly spaced.</p><br>
<p>The house was built sometime before 1754 by Joseph Damon, and a portion was inherited by his son Jabez. The house was to remain in divided ownership by members of the Damon family for more than 100 years, the various shares being finally united in 1870 by Rufus Damon. This method of dividing and sharing houses was not particularly unusual in rural settings where buildings were expensive to build. The saltbox form, while typical in New England, was unusual in Reading, where framed extensions are more often found in houses of this period.</p><br>
<p>The Joseph Parker House is a historic house at 107 Grove Street in Reading, Massachusetts. The 2.5 story wood frame house was probably built around 1795, when it first appeared on local maps. It is predominantly Federal in its styling, with smaller second-story windows and boxed cornices. Its center entry surround is a Greek Revival feature, with an architrave surround with corner blocks and half-length sidelight windows. The houses notable occupants include Loea Parker, who died in the War of 1812, and F. Howard Gilson, an early experimenter in photography. From 1910 to 1932 it was owned by the Fathers and Mothers&#39; Club, which used it as a country retreat for urban youth.</p><br>
<p>The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.</p><br>
<p>The Joseph Temple House is a historic house at 42 Chute Street in Reading, Massachusetts. The Second Empire wood frame house was built in 1872 by Joseph Temple, owner of locally prominent necktie manufacturer. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The Temple House is set on the west side of Chute Street, a side street in a residential area west of Reading&#39;s central business district. The house is a two-story wood frame structure, with a mansard roof providing a full third story. The mansard roof features deep flared eaves with decorative brackets, and the windows in its gabled dormers are topped by dentillated cornices. The main facade, facing east, is three bays wide, with a single-story porch extending across its width. The porch has a flat roof, and is supported by turned posts with decorative brackets, and has turned balusters. The main entrance is in the rightmost bay, and is framed by sidelight and transom windows. The other bays have simple sash windows, and are topped by relatively plain projecting cornices. The side elevation has a projecting polygonal bay, with small recessed panels above and below its windows.</p><br>
<p>The house was built in 1872, in a neighborhood laid out after the railroad arrived in 1848. Joseph Temple was a Reading native who entered the business of the locally prominent Damon family, whose firm manufactured neckties on premises in Reading center. In 1910 the division that Temple ran was producing 250,000 neckties per year.</p><br>
<p>The Kemp Place and Barn form a historic farmstead at 186 Summer Avenue in Reading, Massachusetts. The main house is a -story Italianate wood-frame structure, with an L-shaped cross-gable footprint and clapboard siding. Its roofline is studded with paired brackets, its windows have "eared" or shouldered hoods, and there is a round-arch window in the front gable end. The porch wraps around the front to the side, supported by Gothic style pierced-panel posts. The square cupola has banks of three round-arch windows on each side. It is one of Reading&#39;s more elaborate Italianate houses, and is one of the few of the period whose cupola has survived.</p><br>
<p>The carriage barn, which stands at the rear of the 1.5 acre property, is a two-story rectangular wood-frame structure with a side-gable roof, and a smaller cross gable above the large center vehicle entrance bay. The building shares stylistic features with the house, including bracketed eaves and shouldered door hoods. The hayloft entrance, located above the main entrance, is surrounded by a scrolled carving.</p><br>
<p>The farmhouse and barn were built in 1858 by Robert "Father" Kemp, founder of the Old Folks Concerts, a nostalgic singing group that toured the country. Kemp was politically active at the local level, serving on the school committee. A subsequent owner opened one of the nations first dollar stores in Boston. In 1908, the house was inherited by Charles P. Howard, a prominent Harvard University lawyer who was active in local and state politics. Howards wife Katherine was active in Republican Party politics, serving as secretary of the Republican National Convention in 1952.</p><br>
<p>The farmhouse and carriage barn were each separately listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. Demolition of both structures was proposed by its owner in 2014 due to the extensive presence of wood rot, but a six-month delay was imposed by the local historical commission in August 2014.</p><br>
<p>The Masonic Block  is an historic commercial block at 600-622 Main Street in Reading, Massachusetts. This three story brick building is distinctive in the town for its Renaissance Revival styling. It was built in 1894 by the local Reading Masonic Temple Corporation, and housed the local Masonic lodge on the third floor. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The Masonic Block is set at the northwest corner of Main Street (Massachusetts Route 28) and Haven Street in Reading&#39;s central business district. It is a three story brick structure with stone trim. The facade facing Main Street is five bays wide, that facing Haven is nineteen bays, and there is a bay in an angled corner between. The first level houses modern commercial storefronts, with plate glass windows sheltered by awnings. The upper floor bays are all sash windows, and are divided into groups of varying size by projecting piers that rise to the roof. A band of corbelled brickwork separates the second and third levels, and the third level is topped by a band of limestone, above which is a row of blind arches, giving the third-floor windows the appearance of being set in arched openings. This row of arches is separated from the roof by a band of more heavily corbelled brickwork.</p><br>
<p>The block was built in 1894, displacing a private residence that was disassembled and relocated. At the time, the lane to the south was private; it was widened and named Haven Street in honor of the first minister of the Third Parish, Thomas Haven. It was built by the Reading Masonic Temple Corporation, a private stock company composed of local businessmen. Longtime tenants of the building included Willis&#39; Drug Store, the Reading Chronicle (publisher 1894-1932), and the local Masonic lodge, which occupied the third floor. The building was extended to the north in 1929, a space that was occupied by jeweler Millard F. Charles. Charles over time acquired a controlling interest in the ownership corporation, which was renamed the Millard F. Charles Corporation in 1972.</p><br>
<p>The Nathaniel Batchelder House is a historic house at 71 Franklin Street in Reading, Massachusetts. Built sometime between 1753 and 1765, it is a prominent local example of Georgian architecture. It is also significant for its association with several members of the locally prominent Batchelder family. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The Nathaniel Batchelder House stands in a residential area of northern Reading, on the north side of Franklin Street just east of its junction with Pearl Street. It is a 2-1/2 story timber frame structure, with a side gable roof, two interior chimneys, clapboarded exterior, and stone foundation. Its main facade is five bays wide, with a center entrance framed by sidelight windows, pilasters, and a tall corniced entablature. Its upper-floor windows are set butting against the eave, a typical Georgian feature.</p><br>
<p>The house was built sometime between 1753 and 1765 by Nathaniel Batchelder, Jr., probably later in the period following his fathers death in 1763 when the family property was divided. The Batchelders were a prominent local family, and this house remained in the family until 1971. A mid-19th century descendant was "Master John" Batchelder, who was well-known locally as a school teacher, town selectman, and state representative. Johns great-great-great-grandniece Bernice, who also lived in this house, was also a local school teacher.</p><br>
<p>The Old Hose House is an historic fire house at 1249 Main Street in Reading, Massachusetts. The Colonial Revival wood frame building was constructed in 1902 for a cost of $1,180.50, plus $10 for the land on which it stands. The modestly-scaled building housed a fire truck until 1930, after which time it has served as home to community groups. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The Old Hose House is set on the east side of Main Street (Massachusetts Route 28), a major thoroughfare, in a rural-suburban area of northern Reading. It is a modestly sized single-story wood frame structure, with Colonial Revival styling, including a gambrel roof with an overhanging street-facing gable that has decorative brackets in the overhang. The gable end has a small round window with leaded lights, and the roof is topped by a small square belfry with a pyramidal roof. The main street-facing facade has a band of three small square windows, the engine bay entrance having been built over. The building is entered on the right side, where a hip-roof porch extends along a portion of that side.</p><br>
<p>The building was built in 1902 to house a hand-pump fire truck that was operated by a volunteer fire company organized in 1815. The town paid the $10 for the land and $1,180.50 for the buildings construction. The bell was taken from the towns John Street school and installed in 1904. In 1930, after the town had adopted more modern equipment, the building was sold to a local community theater organization, which staged inexpensive productions in the building. In 1972 it was sold to a community choir, which uses it as a rehearsal space.</p><br>
<p>The Pearl Street School is a historic school building at 75 Pearl Street in Reading, Massachusetts. Built in 1939, the two-story brick and limestone building is Readings only structure built as part of a Public Works Administration project. The site on which it was built was acquired by the town sometime before 1848, and served as its poor farm. With fifteen classrooms, the school replaced three smaller wood-frame schoolhouses in the towns school system, and was its first fire-resistant structure.</p><br>
<p>The school, designed by local architect George H. Sidebottom, is stylistically a mix of Colonial Revival, Classical Revival, and Art Deco styles. The walls are predominantly brick, with limestone and wooden trim, and the cornice is decorated with modillions. These features, and the 12-over-12 double hung windows, are typical Colonial Revival features. The building has a basic U-shaped plan, with projecting pavilions on the left and right ends, and the front facade. The legs of the U are irregular: the right-side leg is a rectangular ell, while the left side one is an irregular polygonal shape. The projecting pavilions are a typical Classical Revival feature. Art Deco surrounds frame the windows on these pavilions, and there are brick pilasters that frame the Art Deco surrounds on the entryways that are centered in each pavilion.</p><br>
<p>The building served Reading as an elementary school until 1984, when it was closed due to declining enrollment. The school board leased it to a variety of tenants, and turned it over to the town selectmen in 1989, who sold the building in 1995.</p><br>
<p>The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997. It now houses the Residence at Pearl Street assisted living residence.</p><br>
<p>The former Reading Municipal Building is a historic building at 49 Pleasant Street in Reading, Massachusetts. Built in 1885, this two-story brick building was the towns first municipal structure, housing the town offices, jail, and fire station. In 1918 all functions except fire services moved out of the building. It now serves as Readings Pleasant Street Senior Center. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The former Reading Municipal Building is set on the southeast corner of Pleasant and Parker Streets, just off Reading&#39;s Main Street central business district. It is a rectangular two-story brick Renaissance Revival structure with a hip roof. Its northern facade is four bays wide, with the main entrance in the leftmost bay. The three first-floor windows are set in round-arch openings, while the four on the second are set in segmented-arch openings. The west facade originally housed the openings for the fire house, with three large round-arch openings now filled with wood paneling and windows below, and single segmented-arch windows flanking a central pair of narrow windows in the center bay. At the northeast corner, a wood frame tower with Stick style decoration rises to a gable-over-hip roof.</p><br>
<p>The town of Reading was incorporated in 1644, but this, its first purpose-built municipal building, was not constructed until 1883. It was designed by local architect Horace G. Wadlin, and housed town offices, fire station, and the local jail. It served all of these roles until 1918, when the town offices were relocated to the present town hall in 1918. This building remained a fire station for many years, with its original round doorway openings combined into two rectangular openings to provide access for more modern fire equipment. The building was in this configuration when it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. The fire house facade has since been restored to its original form, albeit with the openings closed off, and the building now houses a local senior center.</p><br>
<p>The Thomas Symonds House is a historic house at 320 Haverhill Street in Reading, Massachusetts. Built sometime between 1775 and 1836 by Thomas Symonds, Jr., it is the only Federal period brick-ended house in the town, and is unusually architecturally sophisticated for the period in the town. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The Symonds House is set opposite Symonds Way on the west side of Haverhill Street, one of Reading&#39;s oldest north-south roads, and an early settlement area. Facing south, it is a large 2-1/2 story wood frame structure, with a hip roof and four interior chimneys. Its end walls are brick, and the front and rear walls are finished in clapboards. Its front door surround is a conjectured 20th century replacement for an earlier surround. The entry on the north side has narrow pilasters, and is topped by a four-pane transom and an entablature with an elaborate cornice.</p><br>
<p>The house was built sometime between 1783 and 1836 by Thomas Symonds, Jr., whose father had made by 1750 accumulated significant land in the area. The relatively high Federal style of the house is unusual for Reading, and may have been the result of the influence of Salem builder Samuel McIntire, who was related to Symonds (also a Salem native) by marriage. The use of brick was probably a fashion statement, since Symonds owned a local sawmill, and lumber was readily available. The property now houses a hospice facility.</p><br>
<p>The Walnut Street School is a historic school building at 55 Hopkins Street in Reading, Massachusetts. A two-room schoolhouse built in 1854, it is the town&#39;s oldest public building. Since 1962 it has been home to the Quannapowitt Players, a local theatrical company. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The Walnut Street School is set on the west side of Hopkins Street in a residential area of southern Reading. It is a roughly rectangular single-story wood frame structure, with its long axis perpendicular to the street. The building is finished in wooden clapboards, and has a gable roof whose eaves are studded with Italianate brackets. The building corners are pilastered. The street-facing facade is two bays wide, with each bay containing a pair of sash windows; there is a single sash window in the gable end. Most of the south facade is covered by a modern extended vestibule with a hip roof, and a projecting gable-roofed portico supported by round columns near the western end. One entrance is under the portico, while another is roughly centered on the extended vestibule.</p><br>
<p>The building originally housed two class-rooms when it was built in 1854, and is the oldest surviving civic building in the town. In 1884 the building&#39;s entrance was redesigned and its interior reconfigured, to plans by local architect Horace G. Wadlin. It was used as a school until 1944. In 1962 it was sold to the Quannapowitt Players, a local theatrical organization, which has further modified the entry and adapted the interior as a 150-seat theater.</p><br>
<p>The Wendell Bancroft House is a historic house at 20 Washington Street in Reading, Massachusetts. Built in the late 1860s, it is one of the town&#39;s few surviving examples of residential Gothic Revival architecture, built for one of its leading businessmen of the period. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The Wendell Bancroft House stands in a suburban residential neighborhood west of central Reading, at the northeastern corner of Washington and Woburn Streets. It is a 2-1/2 story wood frame house, with a hip roof and clapboarded exterior. The roof has cross-gable dormers with steeply pitched roofs and decorative bargeboard trim, and the south facade has Gothic lancet windows. Windows are topped by small shedroof hoods supported by decorative brackets; the latter also appear on the main roof eave, the porch roof eave, and the eave of a bay window on the south side. The front porch has a hip roof supported by chamfered posts, and a turned spindle balustrade.</p><br>
<p>The house was built in the late 1860s, and is one of the few Gothic Revival houses in the town. It was built by Wendell Bancroft, a prominent local businessman and banker. He owned a coal and lumber yard, was a founding officer of the First National Bank of Reading, and was a director of two other local banks.</p><br>
<p>The Allyn House is a historic house at 94 Oakland Avenue in Arlington, Massachusetts. Built about 1898, it is a prominent local example of Craftsman style architecture. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The Allyn House stands in the Arlington Heights neighborhood, on the southeast side of Oakland Avenue roughly midway between Cedar Avenue and Gray Street. It occupies an irregular diamond-shaped lot, and is (unlike its neighbors) oriented at an angle to the street. The front of the lot is demarcated by a low rubblestone wall. The house is a 2-1/2 story wood frame structure, with a stuccoed exterior and brown wooden trim. It has a hip roof with extended eaves, punctuated by hip-roofed dormers with shingled sides. Its front facade is dominated by a full-height polygonal bay, with a band of narrow casement windows in the center section, and single windows on the angled sides. Other Craftsman details include exposed rafter ends and a number of diamond-pane windows.</p><br>
<p>Significant development in the Arlington Heights area began following the 1872 purchase of the Pierce family properties by the Arlington Land Company. The lot this house stands on was among the Arlington Land Company holdings, and the house was built about 1898. It was owned for many years by Phillip M. Allyn, a publisher who worked in Boston. It is a particularly fine local example of Craftsman architecture.</p><br>
<p>The Arlington Center Historic District includes the civic and commercial heart of Arlington, Massachusetts. It runs along the town&#39;s main commercial district, Massachusetts Avenue, from Jason Street to Franklin Street, and includes adjacent 19th- and early 20th-century residential areas roughly bounded by Jason Street, Pleasant Street, and Gray Street. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.</p><br>
<p>The oldest house in the district is the c. 1740 Jason Russell House. The town&#39;s Old Burying Ground is located on Pleasant Street; its oldest marked grave dates to 1735. Arlington was the scene of some of the worst fighting in the Battles of Lexington and Concord that started the American Revolutionary War in 1775. A number of the dead from both sides of that battle are interred there.</p><br>
<p>Arlington remained a small rural town until the middle of the 19th century. Before then it had a few mills (none of which have survived) located on Mill Brook, which runs just north of Massachusetts Avenue. Some of the housing associated with the mill workers survives in a densely packed residential area on Central Street. One of the finer houses from this period is the 1842 Gothic Revival Chase Wellington House at 25 Maple Street.</p><br>
<p>Most of the commercial, civic, and religious buildings in Arlington Center were built later in the 19th century or in the early years of the 20th. Prominent among them is the Classical Revival Robbins Memorial Town Hall, designed by R. Clipston Sturgis and built in 1912, and the adjacent Robbins Memorial Library, built in 1892 to a design by Cabot, Everett & Mead. In between them are gardens that were first designed by Sturgis and later redesigned in 1939 by the Olmsted Brothers firm. Unusual is the octagonal Central Fire Station, which anchors the east end of the district, built in 1926 to a design by George Ernest Robinson.</p><br>
<p>The Arlington Coal & Lumber Company building is a historic commercial and civic building at 41 Park Avenue in Arlington, Massachusetts. Built about 1875, it is a locally significant example of Late Gothic Revival architecture, with a long history as a community center. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The Arlington Coal & Lumber Company building is located on the north side of Park Avenue on the east side of the village of Arlington Heights. It is a two-story wood frame building with a front gabled roof. Its exterior is clad mostly in wooden clapboards, with top portion of the front gable finished in vertical board siding. The front facade has four sash windows on the first floor, with the entrance between the two rightmost, framed by pilasters and topped by an entablature and gabled pediment. The first floor is separated from the second by a shallow hip-roofed porch. The upper level has a central group of three tall round-arch windows, flanked on either side small round windows. Fenestration and door placement on the sides is varied. The ground floor houses commercial space, and the upper level a large auditorium.</p><br>
<p>The distinctive Gothic Revival building was built c. 1875, and has seen a variety of uses. Its upper floor was used as a meeting space, and was where political meetings, religious services, and social events took place, along with civic activities such as theater productions, dance classes, and fraternal society meetings. One group that used it was the Arlington Zouaves, a quasi-military marching society. The first floor has predominantly been used for commercial purposes, although the building did for a time house a branch of the local public library.</p><br>
<p>The Arlington Gaslight Company is an historic industrial complex on Grove Street in Arlington, Massachusetts. It is one the towns few large-scale examples of industrial architecture, built for a local fuel company in 1914. The three-building facility presently houses the towns public works department. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The former Arlington Gas Company property consists of about 4.5 acre on the east side of Grove Street in central Arlington, and is bounded on the north by the former railroad right-of-way that now carries the Minuteman Bike Path. The largest surviving building, a power station occupying a significant portion of the back section of the property, is a prominent local example of Romanesque Revival architecture, with corbelled brick decoration on its cornices. Fronting on Grove Street are two smaller brick buildings, one originally serving as the gas company offices, and the other as a meter house.</p><br>
<p>The sites previous industrial use was for the Welch and Griffith saw factory, the first in the United States. This complex burned down in 1913. The complex was built in 1914 to house the Arlington Gas Company, which manufactured fuel for home use. It originally included a large storage tank, on top of which was emblazoned "ARLINGTON" and an arrow pointing north; this was one of the earliest known aids to aerial navigation, and was torn down in 1975. The complex now serves as the towns public works yard.</p><br>
<p>The Arlington Pumping Station, built in 1907, is a historic water pumping station on Brattle Court  in Arlington, Massachusetts. Its purpose was to provide water to Lexington and higher elevations in Arlington. The station was put in service on December 4, 1907.</p><br>
<h2>Design</h2><br>
<p>The station was designed by CA Dodge & Co, with construction beginning August 23, 1906. It is a brick building 90 ft long by 46 ft wide, about 26 ft from the ground to the cornice. The foundation walls are of Portland cement concrete, faced, where exposed on the outside below the water-table course, with seam-faced granite. Exterior walls are of dark-red faced brick, with Longmeadow brownstone trimmings, and are surmounted by a hip roof supported by steel trusses and covered with slate. The steps at the main entrance, the water-table course and the trimmings below the water-table are of pink Milford granite.</p><br>
<p>The building is subdivided by a division wall forming an engine room 48 ft long by 40 ft wide and 24 ft high, and a boiler room 40 ft long by 35 ft wide and 33 ft high. The interior facing of the engine and boiler room walls is of red brick. The engine room floor is of red quarry tile. The floors in the basement of the engine room and in the boiler and coal houses are granolithic. In the rear of the boiler room there is an underground coal pocket 33 ft long by 27 ft wide by 10 ft high, covered by a reinforced concrete roof over which the side track is carried. In this roof there are 16 openings through which coal may be unloaded from the cars. The brick chimney is in the rear of the building. It is 70 ft high and 8 ft in diameter at the base, diminishing to 5 ft in diameter at a point 6 ft below the top. The flue is 2 feet 6 inches in diameter. The main entrance is on the front of the building. The vestibule is 7 ft by 9 ft, and on either side of it are the office and toilet room, both 8 ft by 9 ft, the three forming a projection from the main building 10 ft by 29 ft.</p><br>
<h2>Pumping equipment</h2><br>
<p>The Allis-Chalmers Company furnished the pumping equipment, which was a horizontal, cross-compound, flywheel engine fitted with Corliss valve gear, and operating two horizontal, outside packed, plunger pumps. The high and low pressure steam pistons were 14 inches and 28 inches in diameter, respectively, and the pump plungers 8% inches in diameter, all having a stroke of 18 inches. The capacity of the engine at 65 revolutions per minute was 1,500,000 gallons in twenty-four hours. The engine which was erected by the Blake & Knowles Steam Pump Works was of the horizontal, cross-compound, direct-acting type, operating two outside packed, plunger pumps. The steam cylinders were 11 inches and 22 inches in diameter, the pump plungers 12 inches in diameter, and both pistons and plungers have a stroke of 18 inches. When operated at the rate of 31 revolutions per minute the capacity was 1,500,000 gallons per day. There were two boilers of the horizontal, under-fired type, each 54 inches in diameter, containing 60 3-inch tubes 17 ft long. The furnaces were fitted with Foster shaking grates, 4 ft wide by 5 l/2 feet long.</p><br>
<p>The Baptist Society Meeting House is a historic former Baptist meeting house at 3-5 Brattle Street in Arlington, Massachusetts. Built in 1790, it is the town&#39;s oldest surviving church building. Now in residential use, the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The former Baptist Society Meeting House stands roughly midway between Arlington&#39;s town center and the village of Arlington Heights, on the east side of Brattle Street just north of Massachusetts Avenue. It is a 3-1/2 story wood frame structure, with a gabled roof, two interior chimneys, and a clapboarded exterior. It is five bays wide and four deep, with a symmetrical front facade. At the center of the facade is a double entrance sheltered by a porch supported by square posts. Windows are sash on the first two floors, with smaller windows on the third floor.</p><br>
<p>Arlingtons Baptist Society was organized in 1780, and was the first group to split away from the towns dominant Congregational church. The congregation first met in a number of private places, including the Capt. Benjamin Locke House, until this building was constructed in 1790. The congregation is now housed in Arlington&#39;s First Baptist Church, and sold this building into private ownership in 1828. The architecture of this building is in emulation of older meeting houses in Lexington and Concord, dating to the early decades of the 18th century, which are seen in period engravings depicting the Battles of Lexington and Concord which started the American Revolutionary War. Originally set facing Massachusetts Avenue, it was in 1913 moved back in its lot and turned to face Brattle Street.</p><br>
<p>The Maria Bassett House is a historic house at 8 College Avenue in Arlington, Massachusetts. Built c. 1850-70, it is one of the oldest houses in northwestern Arlington, and a particularly grand example of Italianate architecture. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The Maria Bassett House stands on a hillside overlooking the Lower Mystic Lake, at the southeast corner of College Avenue and Stowecroft Road and a short way above United States Route 3, from which it is separated by an intervening house. It is a 2-1/2 story wood frame structure, with its front facade oriented to face roughly east, toward the lake. Its Italianate features include a hip roof with extended eaves, paired brackets and dentil moulding in the eaves, and corner boards scored to resemble quoins. The porch, which wraps around two sides, is also elaborately decorated, with brackets, dentil moulding, paired columns, and turned balusters. It probably once had a cupola, another high-style Italianate feature. A modern ell extends to the rear of the house.</p><br>
<p>Estimated to have been built between 1850 and 1870, it was one of the first to be built in the northwestern part of the town, most of which was not developed residentially until the 20th century. The rolling hills of the area were at the time primarily used for dairy farming.</p><br>
<p>The Butterfield-Whittemore House, is a historic colonial house at 54 Massachusetts Avenue in Arlington, Massachusetts. With its oldest section dating to c. 1695, it is one of the town&#39;s oldest houses, and may be its oldest. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The Butterfield-Whittemore House stands on the south side of Massachusetts Avenue in East Arlington, between Fairmont and Lafayette Streets. It is set back from the street relative to the flanking multifamily buildings, and is set slightly askew from the current alignment of the road. It is a two story wood frame structure, with a hip roof, clapboarded front, and brick sidewalls. The roof is pierced by interior chimneys. The main facade is five bays wide and symmetrical, with the centered entrance sheltered by a gabled porch supported by fluted columns.</p><br>
<p>The earliest part of the house was built about 1695 by Johnathan Butterfield, a field driver in Menotomy, as Arlington was then called. It was sold in 1749 to Samuel Whittemore III, son of the local American Revolutionary War hero of the same name. The locally famous Whittemore was long thought to own this house, but was actually living in a house across Massachusetts Avenue. Greek Revival modifications were made about 1845, and a new porch added circa 1920. Restorations began in 2006 and have since completed. The houses position relative to Massachusetts Avenue is unusual because it is reflective of the roads early 18th century alignment.</p><br>
<p>The Call-Bartlett House is a historic house at 216 Pleasant Street in Arlington, Massachusetts. Built in 1855, it is one of the town&#39;s finest examples of Greek Revival architecture. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The Call-Bartlett House stands on the south side of Pleasant Street (Massachusetts Route 60), roughly midway between Kensington Park and Brunswick Road. The lot on which it stands would historically have provided a view of Spy Pond, from which it is now separated by intervening construction built after subdivision of the original estate. It is a 2-1/2 story L-shaped wood frame structure, with a cross-gabled roof configuration. The exterior is finished in a combination of flushboarding (mainly on the street-visible sides) and wooden clapboards. The main facade is three bays wide, with the entrance in the left-side bay, and corner pilasters rising to a full entablature and fully pedimented gable. The entrance is framed by pilasters and topped by a four-light transom window, entablature, and gabled pediment. The leg of the L extends to the left from the rear of the main block, and its front is also flushboarded. The side wall between has a single round-arch window. The pond-facing facade has a two-story Greek temple portico with four columns.</p><br>
<p>This house was built in 1855 for Henry Call, and was for over 40 years the home of George Bartlett. Bartlett was an English draftsman and lithographer, educated at the South Kensington Schools, who played an important role in teaching the arts at the state normal school.</p><br>
<p>Calvary Methodist Church is a historic Methodist church building at 300 Massachusetts Avenue in Arlington, Massachusetts. Built in 1919-23, the building is a near replica of Boston&#39;s Kings Chapel, executed in wood. Its tower is topped by a belfry designed by noted architect Charles Bulfinch in 1809 and built for use on Boylston Market; it was rescued from demolition and given to the church in 1921. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The Calvary Methodist Church is located on the southwest side of Massachusetts Avenue, southeast of Arlington center. It is a rectangular wood frame structure, with a projecting vestibule and tower. The main block has a hipped roof, and its side walls have four round-arch windows. The projecting is fronted by four Ionic columns, with a square stage above that houses a clock with a single face facing front, and small round windows on the other three sides. This stage is topped by a balustrade, and a flush-boarded stage with wide projecting sections and a dentillated cornice. Above this is an octagonal belfry, with four wide sides housing round-arched louvered openings with engaged columns at the corners. A stepped-back octagonal section tops the belfry, with a concave roof at the very top. A parish house, built in 1953, is attached to the church by a narrow passage.</p><br>
<p>The Methodist congregation first met in Arlington in 1916, and a plan for construction of a church for it soon followed. The present building was designed by James Macnaughton and William Perry, and construction began in 1919. The congregation had difficulty keeping up with the construction costs, and the builder threatened to sell off the partially-finished building for use as a theater. A town-wide appeal raised sufficient funds to cover the costs, and the building was completed in 1923. During the design process, Macnaughton had learned of Charles Bulfinchs planned cupola for Bostons Kings Chapel, which was never executed. He learned of the existence of a Bulfinch-designed cupola that had been installed on the Boylston Market, a Bulfinch design built in 1810 and torn down in 1887. The cupola had been removed in 1886 and purchased by a brewery in Charlestown, which was itself slated for demolition after closing due to Prohibition. The owner agreed to donate the cupola to the church, on condition that its origin be properly credited.</p><br>
<p>Highrock Church is an Evangelical Covenant Church congregation located in Arlington, Massachusetts. Founded in 1999, it occupies the former Saint Athanasius Greek Orthodox Church at 735 Massachusetts Avenue in the town center. The building, constructed in 1841 and restyled in 1860, is a prominent regional example of Italianate ecclesiastical architecture, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.</p><br>
<h2>Building architecture and history</h2><br>
<p>Highrock Church stands on the west side of Arlington Center, on the north side of Massachusetts Avenue between Central Street and Mill Street. It is a basically rectangular single-story wood frame structure, with a gabled roof and clapboarded exterior. It is fronted by a projecting vestibule with elaborate Classical features, capped by an equally elaborate three-stage tower topped by a blue cupola. The interior is more modestly styled.</p><br>
<p>The church building was constructed in 1841 for a Universalist congregation that had broken off from First Parish Congregational Church, which maintained a Unitarian belief. It was originally trimmed with Greek Revival features, and lacked the projecting entry and tower. In 1860 it was substantially altered according to plans developed by ecclesiastical architect Thomas Silloway, which included the elaborate front and a tower with a 90 ft spire. The spire was blown away in the Great New England Hurricane of 1938, and was replaced by the cupola. The church&#39;s architecture is regarded as one of the finest examples of early Italianate ecclesiastical architecture in the Greater Boston area.</p><br>
<p>In 1961, the two congregations reunited, occupying a building across the street. In 1964, Saint Athasius Greek Orthodox Church purchased the building from the Universalists and made the site its home until 2004. The church building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. In 2006, the Highrock congregation purchased the building, after the Greek Orthodox congregation moved to a larger structure (the former St. James Roman Catholic Church in Arlington).</p><br>
<h2>Congregation history</h2><br>
<p>The Highrock congregation was established in 1999 in Needham, Massachusetts, adopting the name "Highrock" from the street on which they met. The joined the Evangelical Covenant Church in 2003, and in 2006 purchased this building. In 2008, Highrock launched its first church plant, establishing a new congregation in Brookline. In the summer of 2012, Highrock launched two new church plants in Quincy and Salem.</p><br>
<p>The Pleasant Street Congregational Church is an historic Congregational church at 75 Pleasant Street in Arlington, Massachusetts. The church was built in 1844 for a congregation that split doctrinally from the First Parish Church, whose adherents chose to become Unitarian. The church is a fine example of pattern-book Greek Revival architecture. Its steeple was toppled in 1871, and was again damaged by the New England Hurricane of 1938, necessitating steel reinforcements. The interior was restyled in the late Victorian period, and lengthened in 1883 to accommodate increased attendance. The Colonial Revival front entrance dates to the a series of alterations and repairs made after the 1938 hurricane.</p><br>
<p>The church building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983, and included in an expansion of the Arlington Center Historic District in 1985.</p><br>
<p>In 2011, the church closed and the congregation was disbanded. The Boston Church of Christ bought the building and have renovated it and will be holding their services there.</p><br>
<p>Hope Island is a privately owned island in Casco Bay near the city of Portland, Maine, United States. It is a part of the Town of Chebeague Island, in Cumberland County. The 89 acre island was considered for an LNG terminal. Developer John Cacoulidis and his wife Phyllis bought the island in 1993. In addition to the existing 10,000 sq. ft. house built in 1913 with nine bedrooms, seven bathrooms and five fireplaces, the Cacoulidises built there a separate 3,300-square-foot guest house, a boathouse with an apartment, and roads looping the island. They&#39;ve also erected horse stables, a chicken coop, a garage and their own church, and for access both a boat dock and a helicopter pad. In a dispute over property taxes, the two part-time residents attempted but failed in a legislative effort to secede from the town of Cumberland.</p><br>
<p>The Capitol Theater Building is a historic mixed commercial, residential, and theatrical building at 202–208 Massachusetts Avenue in Arlington, Massachusetts. It was built in 1925 by the Locatelli family, and is one of the area&#39;s finest early motion picture theaters. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.</p><br>
<h2>Description</h2><br>
<p>The Capitol Theater building is a large three-story brick and masonry structure at the northwest corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Lake Street in eastern Arlington. The building is stylistically diverse, featuring elements found in the Classical Revival, Baroque, and early Art Deco styles. The entrance to the theater is found on the long facade facing Massachusetts Avenue, flanked by several commercial storefronts. There is a storefront with an angled entrance at the corner with Lake Street, and another on Lake Street that now provides access to part of the theater lobby.</p><br>
<p>In the late 2000s, the businesses along the stretch of Massachusetts Avenue surrounding the building organized as tne Capitol Square Business Association.</p><br>
<h2>Theater history</h2><br>
<p>The theater was designed by William J. Drummey, and built in 1925 as part of the Albert Locatelli chain of theaters. The building cost $500,000 to build, and originally housed 11 stores, office space on the second floor, and 15 apartments on the third.</p><br>
<p>The theater originally had a large pipe organ and seating for 1600 people among an orchestra area and balcony for viewing a stage where, in addition to films, vaudeville acts could be seen. The theater changed owners several times between the early 1930s and 1990 and was multiplexed in 1989. During the 1960s the theater was remodeled to a more contemporary design but the original details including granite columns and gold leaf detail were simply covered over rather than demolished. As a result, during renovations in the 1990s the theater was able to be returned to its former 1930s styling. In the process of multiplex conversion great care was taken to preserve the original aesthetic of the theater and each screening room retains the distinct character of the original space. Theater #1 encompasses the original orchestra seating area, stage and soaring ceilings with gold leaf and plaster details. Other screening rooms now occupy the former balcony and backstage area.</p><br>
<p>The Chapel of St. Anne is a historic Episcopal chapel on Claremont Avenue in Arlington, Massachusetts. Built in 1915, it is the town&#39;s only work of the noted architect Ralph Adams Cram, and is a fine example of Norman Gothic architecture. The chapel was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The chapel is set on the east side of Claremont Avenue in a residential part of Arlington Heights, on the grounds of the Youth Villages-Germaine Lawrence Campus. This property was, at the time of the chapels construction in 1915, part of an Episcopalian orphanage. Ralph Adams Cram designed the chapel, although it is done in Norman style rather than Crams more well-known Gothic Victorian. Its stained-glass windows are by a frequent Cram collaborator, Charles Connick.</p><br>
<p>The chapel is a two-story roughly rectangular stone structure, oriented east-west, with a gabled roof. The stone used in its construction was locally gathered, and integrates a number of unusual features, including a paving stone from the Cambridge sewer system, a 16th-century madonna and child figure executed in Carrara marble, and ecclesiastical wood carvings. It has a gracefully curved apse, and a rose window in the gable at the western end.</p><br>
<p>The Society of St. John established an orphanage on this property in 1910, and initially held its religious services in a small wood-frame chapel. The present chapel was built to replace that structure. In 1928 the property was repurposed to become the St. Anne&#39;s School for Girls, named for the order of nuns who ran the facility. In 1978 the nuns began to separate the religious aspect from the school, which had come to serve predominantly emotionally troubled children. This resulted in the creation in 1980 of the Germaine Lawrence School, since merged with the Youth Villages organization.</p><br>
<p>The Cushman House  is a historic house at 104 Bartlett Avenue in Arlington, Massachusetts. Built in the mid-1880s and moved to its present location in 1896, it is a well-preserved but fully realized example of Queen Anne architecture. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The Cushman House stands in a residential neighborhood on the south side of Arlington Center, on the east side of Bartlett Avenue midway between Gray and Woodland Streets. It is a 2-1/2 story wood frame structure, with a cross-gabled roof and an exterior of wooden clapboards and shingles. It is roughly T-shaped, with its entry porch located in the crook of the T, with turned posts and brackets forming arches supporting the porch roof. The siding at the upper levels is partly standard wooden shingles, and partly scallop-cut rows, giving variety to the surface.</p><br>
<p>The house was built in 1884-1885 as a rental property by Thomas and John Gray, on the former Fowle estate, and was originally located facing Jason Street. The house was purchased and moved in 1896 by Mr. and Mrs Gardner Cushman, who built their Colonial Revival mansion (72 Irving Street) partly on that land. In 1897, Fannie Cushman sold this house to George and Annie Wentworth, who lived there some twenty years. It is one of Arlington&#39;s best-preserved examples of a modest Queen Anne house, a style more frequently seen than the more elaborate Queen Anne houses found on Pleasant Street.</p><br>
<p>The Ephraim Cutter House is a historic house at 4 Water Street in Arlington, Massachusetts. Built about 1804 by one of the towns leading mill owners, it is one of Arlingtons few surviving Federal period houses. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, and included in an expansion of the Arlington Center Historic District in 1985.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>The Ephraim Cutter House stands on a side street in Arlington Center, on the west side of Water Street just behind the commercial buildings facing Massachusetts Avenue. It is a two story wood frame structure, with a dormered hip roof and clapboarded exterior. Its windows are rectangular sash, topped by delicate eared moulding. The main entrance is at the center of the five-bay front facade, sheltered by a gabled porch. The entrance surround includes sidelight windows and a half-round fan. The porch is supported by fluted columns and pilasters rising to an entablature on the sides, and has a modillioned eave. The porch is likely a later 19th century addition.</p><br>
<p>The house was built about 1804 for Ephraim Cutter, owner of Arlington&#39;s largest mill. The house is one of the few surviving Federal period buildings in Arlington, and is notable among those for its elaborate entrance portico. The house was built facing Massachusetts Avenue, but was moved back and rotated ninety degrees to face Water Street in 1915.</p><br>
<p>The Orvis Road Historic District is a residential historic district in eastern Arlington, Massachusetts. Built as a planned development between 1918 and 1930, Orvis Road contains a well-preserved collection of single and double-family houses of the period, as well its distinctive landscaping, which includes a grassy median not found in Arlington&#39;s other planned subdivisions. The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.</p><br>
<h2>Description and history</h2><br>
<p>Orvis Road is located in eastern Arlington, west of Lake Street and south of Massachusetts Avenue, major collector roadways in the area. Prior to subdivision, the land was part of the market garden farmland of John Squire. Development pressures in the early 20th century prompted many garden farmers to sell their land. Squire&#39;s land was attractively sited, with ready access to public transit and the road network.</p><br>
<p>Orvis Road runs north-south between Massachusetts Avenue and Brooks Avenue, with a small circle just south of the latter. The road consists of two one-way sections, divided by a wide grassy median planted with trees and shrubs. The houses that line it are typically wood-frame structures, between 1-1/2 and 2-1/2 stories in height, some of which have been finished in stucco. Most of them are stylistically representative of the Colonial Revival of the Craftsman/Bungalow movement. Many of the properties have c. 1920s garages, indicating the growing importance of the automobile to local residents. There are a total of 26 properties included in the district; all front on Orvis Road, except the house at the southwest corner of Orvis and Newcomb Road, which has a Newcomb Road address.</p><br>
