Sold in Belmont: Inexpensive on Belmont Hill, But to What End?

A weekly recap of residential properties bought in the past seven days in the “Town of Homes.”

44 Scott Rd. Brick English Cottage (1930), Sold for: $860,000. Listed at $929,000. Living area: 2,368 sq.-ft. 8 rooms; 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths. On the market: 104 days.

• 667 Belmont St. Up-and-down two family (1923), Sold for: $678,000. Listed at $699,000. Living area: 2,667 sq.-ft. 12 rooms; 5 bedrooms, 2 baths. On the market: 59 days.

• 20 Wilson Ave. #2 First-floor CondominiumSold for: $402,850. Listed at $392,500. Living area: 1,060 sq.-ft. 5 rooms; 2 bedrooms, 1 baths. On the market: 48 days.

• 56 Davis Rd. #1 First-floor CondominiumSold for: $440,000. Listed at $469,000. Living area: 1,600 sq.-ft. 7 rooms; 3 bedrooms, 2 baths. On the market: 83 days.

• 27 Dorset Rd. Historic Royal Barry Wills designed Cottage Cape (1937), Sold for: $742,000. Listed at $859,000. Living area: 1,805 sq.-ft. 8 rooms; 5 bedrooms, 2 baths. On the market: 208 days.

It’s a beautiful Belmont house once the pentacle of residential design when it was built in 1937; a Cape Cod-style cottage lying in the then out-of-the-way section of “the Hill.”

The house at 27 Dorset Rd. was designed by one of the most influential modern residential architects, Royal Barry Wills – whose firm continues today – famous for building the quintessential New England home: solid, classic, refined.

The style was so popular that the year after the Dorset Road house was built, a Wills Cape was selected by winners in a national contest over a modern design by Frank Lloyd Wright! (In retrospect, not the correct choice.)

The Belmont Hill house is modernized with a new chef’s kitchen with maple cabinets and granite (ugh!) counter tops, a new gas furnace, central air and the garage has been heated.

But many of Wills’ quality remains; the square rooms, the bay in the living room, the well-proportioned “wing” which houses two bedrooms and a full bath, the small dormers (so they don’t look “clumsy”), a low roof line, narrow hallways to allow for great space for the rooms.

But the sale of this historic house gives me a bad feeling. I truly hope the buyers – who got the house on “the cheap” for $100,000 below the list – have fallen in love with the beauty of fine architecture and will care for it.

But the house, with a “mere” 1,805 sq.-ft. of livable space – less room than the million dollar condos on Boston’s Waterfront – sits on a third of an acre on the top of sought after Belmont Hill. I fear the sale might be for the land rather than the pretty Cape that sits on it.

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