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Owners of unusual California-style house on Comm. Ave. in Brighton propose renovations - and six-story apartment building right behind it
By adamg on Tue, 12/17/2024 - 4:44pm
Rendering by Davis Square Architects.
The owners of an unusual "mission style" stucco three-family house sandwiched between two Brighton-style apartment buildings at 1954 Commonwealth Ave. have filed plans to move the building closer to the sidewalk, reconfigure it for six apartments and build a six-story, 20-unit building right behind it.
The house, built roughly in 1910 with a terra-cotta tile roof, when such houses were more popular in Brighton but is today one of the last remaining examples of the style in the neighborhood.
The exterior of the current house, which "currently suffers from extensive staining, mildew, and cracks," with be replicated and replaced, according to a filing with the Boston Planning Department. "Broken or missing tiles will be replaced with tiles saved from the garage or, if there are not enough, with new tiles to match the existing."
The Yu Investment Trust of West Roxbury has been trying since 2015 to come up with a proposal that would keep the historic house on the site while letting it build more housing units. The trust bought the building in 2004.
In total, the proposal for the roughly one-third-acre lot calls for five studios, seven one-bedroom units and fourteen two-bedroom units. Four the apartments would be rented to people making no more than 70% of the Boston area median income.
The proposal calls for nine parking spaces and storage room for 32 bicycles - 6 of those for visitors.
1954 Commonwealth Ave. filings and meeting/comment schedule.
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Comments
I'm not an architect, but
I'm not an architect, but that looks hideous.
It's a cool & quirky mission building. They should either be allowed to add on in the same style (but not as big as proposed) or bulldoze and have a larger apartment building.
The drawing looks like the mission building is the entrance to a country club/hotel behind it.
You really think so?
I think its fairly attractive.
It seems to incorporate elements of the mission/California style. With that darker terra cotta color and similar windows as the pre-existing building. Looks like the roof might be slightly pitched too.
I think this building would fit in in Chestnut Hilll/JP, and apparently the Brighton of old.
Who reviews?
The plan documents say that the Aberdeen Architectural Conservation District Commission has jurisdiction over theDesign Review for this Project and has approved its design.
Sounds like they're at the stage of informing all other authorities, not seeking design review.
All hail Aberdeen!
Ever been to the West Coast?
This sort of thing is not uncommon - and not necessarily recent.
Kind of looks like...
...this...?
https://youtu.be/1TO48Cnl66w?si=VLZYyboI7aFm1BYv
For a split
For a split second I thought that link would send you to a 1980s Taco Bell commercial.
Old Taco Bells look similar to this building. This even has a drive thru for British Drivers (because its on the right)
Run for the border!
.
Run
Run for the bathroom. Yo Quiero Taco Bell!
Is this building a historic
Is this building a historic landmark that can't be torn down, or is it loaded with asbestos or something? I can't image why an investor would want to move it and not just replace it with a box full of apartments.
Boston Strangler
The Strangler (or one of them if you think there were several) struck next door at 1940 Comm. Ave. murdering Nina Nichols on June 30, 1962.
In the '90s it was a creepy area, the woods around there were a rookery for a huge murder of crows.
Finally someone who respects
Finally someone who respects and makes an effort to preserve craftsmanship and detail that has now become rare in building things now. But the thing in the back is like putting a velvet Elvis painting next to a Monet.
or maybe
Just a perfect excuse for NIMBYs to block the expansion of housing in the city.
Just how "historic" is it?
Seems like they are bending over backwards to, kind of, save this house. If it's not really all that historic, knock it down and put up a tower.
It's America
Anything more than 50 years old is "historic." That means it must be wrapped up in red tape.
The apartment buildings next to it are thus also historic.
The owner's been trying to get out from under this dinosaur for twenty years now. I'm not sure how it has best served the city to keep it vacant and derelict for a generation. The most surprising thing to me is there hasn't been a fire.
https://www.wickedlocal.com/story/transcript-tab/2007/07/26/1954-comm-av...
Anybody who wants to take it off their hands can pick it up for around 4M, but don't bet on the approvals.
32 bike spots
will be used to store maybe 6 bikes, a couple of trash barrels, snow shovels and a recycle bin. The remaining space will be converted to much needed parking spaces once the building is signed off.
Plural?
Believe it or not, you can store 32 bikes in not very much space! Each bike is about 3x5, so 15 square feet. A car parking space takes up about 240 square feet. So 32 bikes spaces = 2 car spaces. Since you say there will be some bikes and other stuff, I believe it would be a much-need space, not multiple spaces.
(Adding the sic because not only are you bad at geometry, but also grammar.)
Yep, the bike corrals in Somerville
that are sometimes put into a single car parking space -- those are able to hold about 16 bikes. (And often do.) Vastly more efficient use of resources.
Unless
Some jerk locks their bike the wrong way so it uses up 1/2 the rack spaces.
Curious place
I've often wondered how places like this survive when all else around them change. What was the circumstance that allowed this one to stay and avoid progress or revitalization? There are a number of places like this in and around Boston.
Looking at old atlases, this
Looking at old atlases, this was built about 10 years before the apartment buildings surrounding it. Sort of short sighted of the original land owner to build a single family house when so many apartment buildings were going up literally all around it at the same time.
Unlike the rendering, the
Unlike the rendering, the actual houses around it in Google Street View look more like apartments from the 1930s or 40s.
And why did they remove the driveway in the rendering if they're planning on 9 vehicle parking spots?
No wonder they can't get approval.
Great place for apartments
I live about a mile away. That stretch of Comm Ave is dominated by apartment buildings. None of them is especially attractive, so a new building, even one some might consider ugly, would not detract from the neighborhood. If the state needs to build more housing, seems like an ideal place.
I don’t know why they’ve gone to such pains to save the house. In that context, it’s kind of a sad relic. About half a mile down the road, directly opposite BC, is a stretch where a couple blocks of similar houses still exist. It’s not like they would be killing the last buffalo if they demoed that house.
What makes the current
What makes the current historic home aesthetically tenable is the open, spacious lawn and foliage in front of it and the lack of one of those hideous new cladded fiber builds behind it. You push the old build up towards the sidewalk and it becomes craptastic even if it survives the move, if it doesn't survive the move put up a brick building.
Penthouse it
They should build a block that occupies the lot and then crane the existing house up on top as a penthouse unit. That would look cool, and have a great view.
In reality, it's not terribly
Edited my earlier post - I was confusing this with a similar house further down on Comm Ave.
Different times
Buildings, crappy or not, should reflect current needs and uses. Stacking apartments behind an underutilized house from an era when there were less people is goofy.
Slightly different topic but related, some are fine with renovations if the facade is maintained and they don't care at all if an entirely new building is built behind it. There's this idea if things look the same as you're passing by then it's all good. I never understood this.
I see this as a similar case.
Fewer people?
Actually, no. More people.
Boston population in 1910: 670,585.
Boston population in 2024: 654,423
Someone has this house built in 1900, but I don't think that's correct. Here's a source saying it was built between 1910 and 1915:
https://www.cityofboston.gov/environment/pdfs/study_report.pdf
A 1909 atlas doesn't show the house, and a 1916 atlas shows it and has the owner as Erastus Gaffield. That's pretty definitive - it wasn't there until after 1909, and it was there by 1916.
https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:1257bs63d
https://www.bahistory.org/1916_Plate10_LO.pdf
It was right next to the property of Elmer Bliss, who put the first house on that street years earlier (the large Bliss residence was torn down ages ago, for another apartment tower).
http://www.beyondthegildedage.com/2011/11/ej-bliss-residence.html
Later, in 1925, 1954 Commonwealth was owned by Helen E. Gray, and the apartment buildings had already started to go up, as Boston grew towards its 1950s peak population.
https://bahistory.org/1925_Plate09_LO.pdf
the house was built in 1900
I wish I could have found more info but so far that's all I got