Sold in Belmont: An ‘As-Is’ Two-Family Takes Its Time Selling

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

For the second week running, only a single house sold in Belmont, according to the MLS.

• 132 Bartlett Ave. Two-family (1925), Sold for: $670,000. Listed at $715,000. Living area: 2,800 sq.-ft. 14 rooms; 5 bedrooms, 2 baths. On the market: 92 days.

The house on Bartlett Avenue – the street was originally named Ripley Road – is a style well known in this area just north of Trapelo Road, the two-family. Second only to the colonial in sheer numbers, two-families were popularized by developers at the turn of the century who subdivided former estates and farmland into smaller, less costly parcels close to the trolley cars that traveled along Trapelo, according to Belmont historian Richard Betts.

Bartlett Avenue was laid out in 1906 by Everett Benton (as in the Benton Library and the former Benton Estate) who divided four existing lots into 13, one of which is the location of 132 Bartlett. The two-family allowed a new generation of middle-class workers to enjoy a suburban lifestyle.

 

Belmont House of the Week: 10 Woods Rd.

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I have traveled by this Arnold Swartzernegger of homes on Woods Road a few times and wondered, “What is it?” A two family? Connected town houses? Or could it be a one family?

Recently placed on the market, 10 Woods Rd. is, in fact, a single residency house. And what a building. It reminds me of what happens when you put too much air into an inner tube: Give it room. It could blow!

The livable floor space is a whopping 3,661 square feet on three floors, a volume usually seen in one of the Belmont Hill manse. But this is Woods Road, the hockey-stick shaped enclosed road off Bacon Road and a block from the Grove Street Playground.

The structure dominates the surrounding homes built 60+ years ago as affordable post-war housing. For example, the average size of the nearby homes is about 1,400 sq.-ft. with its next door neighbor coming in at 1,152 sq.-ft.

Not that 10 Wood Rd. has always been a standout; until 2006, it was just like all the other houses on the street, a circa 1950 Cape that sold for $485,000 in 2005. Within four months of its purchase, the new owner gained a town permit to perform $100,000 of remodeling work for construction to the rear and to build upwards. 

The end result is the sort of “home on steroids” that prompts some residents to discuss placing additional restrictions on the acceptable floor-area-ratio in residential areas. It’s grandious for the street in both bulk and height, although the size is dampened somewhat as it’s adjacent to a rear yard to the house on Bacon Road.

I know that someone’s design preference is a personal one, but I can’t help but comment on 10 Woods Rd. Sorry but it’s a miss in many ways. It would work in a new 20,000 person gated-communities that spring up in the prairies of Colorado but here, it’s a mishmash of concepts that don’t come close to working as a cohesive housing design. From the dominate garage door, the front door is overshadowed by a pair of two-story columns (?) and the undersized “Evita” terrace above it, the lonely Victorian-style turret and the elongated windows, it’s far too busy and out-of-place to be interesting or innovative. The problem is the lot is narrow which forced the designer to cram so much in the front. Better would have been one central idea – a grand front entrance – with the upper floors set back along with the garage.

What the house lacks outside it gains inside. The renovation blew out the space to allow for an open floor plan, high ceiling heights and an open staircase. The foyer is separated by French doors to the living room, which moves into the kitchen and the dining room.

The main floor also has a family room that is adjacent to the dining area, all with Brazilian wood floors. 

The second floor has an oversized landing that opens to a home office. The master bedroom features two walk-in closets and a bathroom with double sinks and a Jacuzzi. There are two additional bedrooms and full bath on the floor.

The third floor offers a pair of bedrooms, one with a sitting area and an en-suite bathroom, ‘ideally suited for guests, older children or an au pair.”

There is that attached one-car garage and a landscaped backyard with patio.

If sold for its listed price, it will be a first for Woods Road; the first home that sells for a cool million.

Listed at $1,159,000.

Listed By: Hammond Residential Real Estate, Martha Brown.

 

 

Belmont Open Houses: Check Out Belmont’s Own Downton Abbey!

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It remains the most grandiose building on the McLean Hospital campus. The brick Georgian mansion – much like Highclere Castle, the grand house used in PBS’s “Downton Abbey” – formerly known as Upham Memorial Hall is finally getting its long overdue rehab by developer Northland Residential Corp. as it’s being transformed into several single-level million-dollar condominiums, one of which is part of an open house.

It’s a little bit of Manhattan housing in the Woodlands at Belmont Hill development. Yet apparently buyers will not have the advantages of living in a co-op. Just think, you and your fellow residents will have no say what Pete, Georgie or Dim will be living down the common hall. Oh, my dear!

What you will get living there is a new name for the abode, “Upham House,” with a most interesting and curious tag line in accompanying real estate ads: “Celebrating the Past.”

That would appear, at first, to be a wonderful phrase … until you dig a little deeper into the building’s past. You see, since opening in 1893 and for the next century, Upham Hall had served as the upscale home for a select number of wealth residents who were stark, raving mad.

In fact, Upham Hall was known as the “Harvard Club” since, as Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam wrote in this outstanding book on McLean Hospital, Gracefully Insane: The Rise and Fall of America’s Premier Mental Hospital, each of the nine suites was occupied by alumni of the great school who suffered from incurable mental illness.

Who were these men and women who previously occupied Upham? Here’s an excerpt from Holly Brubach’s review of Gracefully Insane:

“Louis Agassiz Shaw, a murderer and a snob who inhabited a book-lined suite in Upham Memorial, and Carl Liebman, a paranoid schizophrenic unsuccessfully analyzed by Freud, are cheerfully presented in the context of a cast straight out of a 30’s screwball comedy. Shaw, who had strangled his maid, acquires a sidekick, ”a Bible-thumping companion” by the name of Joan Tunney Wilkinson, daughter of the famous boxer Gene Tunney and sister of Senator John Tunney, accused of killing her husband on Easter Sunday, 1970. ”At McLean,” Beam writes, she ”came under the sway of the Christian revival group the Way. . . . At hall meetings . . . Wilkinson was wont to say, ‘Louis, we must confess our sins.’ His inevitable answer: ‘Oh, Joan, no.’ ” Liebman, whose conviction that he was being followed by detectives was cited by his doctors as evidence of his incurable paranoia, was in fact being followed by detectives, who had been hired by his family.”

By the 1950s, Upham Hall had became “a dumping ground for chronically ill, elderly patients — practically all of them rich — whose families had cut lifetime financial deals with the hospital. There was little incentive to ‘cure’ the Uphamites because their families had paid good money never to see them again,” writes Beam.

That’s some history to be celebrating.

But while its past might not be the expected lure for prospectus buyers as Northland is hoping, there is one small piece of its history that could: in 1966, Upham was the involuntary home of the great blues and pop performer Ray Charles. Rather than send him to prison for five years on a heroin possession charge, a judge said Charles would receive four years’ probation if he entered McLean for observation and a drugs test.

While there, Charles would play the grand piano in the ground floor living room with his fellow “guests” including a “classical cat, who could really wail.”

So what will you find when you attend this weekend’s open house?

The suite up for sale has seven rooms, 2.5 baths, an open floor plan with a nearly 10-foot tall ceiling and more than 2,800 square feet of living space. It offers an outdoor veranda, a private elevator, garage parking and dedicated storage room.

“The home is well suited for entertaining” as the living and dining rooms share a double-sided fireplace and the kitchen will have a commanding stone-topped island and state of the art appliance package (Subzero, Wolfe, Asko). The design provides for a luxurious owner’s suite, a walk-in closet with built-in-closet system, a grand marble shower and double vanity with stone countertop, as well as two additional bedrooms and a spacious den with access to the veranda.

Hardwood flooring (that would be a wooden floor) and distinctive millwork executed by a “master craftsman” will further distinguish this residence. A wide range of customized appointments is available through our in-house design expert.

No mention of any spirits of former residents who ended their days in the “Hall” included in the listed price of $1,495,000.

The open house, located at 20 South Cottage Rd., takes place on Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 20 and 21 from noon to 4 p.m. 

Sold in Belmont: Big Bucks for Brick Ranch

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

• 22 Vernon Rd. Side-entrance Colonial (1934), Sold for: $717,500. Listed at $749,000. Living area: 1,841 sq.-ft. 6 rooms; 3 bedrooms, 1.5 baths. On the market: 62 days.

• 17 Bartlett Ave., #2. Two-level condominium, Sold for: $515,000. Listed at $479,000. Living area: 1,828 sq.-ft. 7 rooms; 4 bedrooms, 1 baths. On the market: 90 days.

• 27 Common St. Brick English Tudor (1930), Sold for: $1,242,500. Listed at $1,250,000. Living area: 2,705 sq.-ft. 9 rooms; 4 bedrooms, 3 baths. On the market: 124 days.

• 59 Tobey Rd. Side-entrance Colonial (1930), Sold for: $780,000. Listed at $699,000. Living area: 1,632 sq.-ft. 7 rooms; 3 bedrooms, 1.5 baths. On the market: 40 days.

• 110 Crestview Rd. Post-war brick Ranch (1960), Sold for: $1,122,000. Listed at $1,100,000. Living area: 2,251 sq.-ft. 9 rooms; 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths. On the market: 98 days.

• 24 Eliot Rd. Garrison-Colonial (1950), Sold for: $666,500. Listed at $699,000. Living area: 1,418 sq.-ft. 7 rooms; 3 bedrooms, 1.5 baths. On the market: 123 days.

• 96 Country Club Lane. French Colonial (1937), Sold for: $1,480,000. Listed at $1,495,000. Living area: 2,993 sq.-ft. 11 rooms; 4 bedrooms, 4.5 baths. On the market: 107 days.

• 115 Winn St. A pretty Cape (1942), Sold for: $706,000. Listed at $649,000. Living area: 1,267 sq.-ft. 6 rooms; 2 bedrooms, 2.5 baths. On the market: 36 days.

Sold in Belmont: Polar Opposites on the Affordability Scale

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

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• 91 Richmond Rd. Classic Garrison-style Colonial (1940), Sold for: $1,110,000. Listed at $1,129,900. Living area: 2,204 sq.-ft. 9 rooms; 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths. On the market: 97 days.

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• 51 Berwick St. #3. Single-floor condominium (1900), Sold for: $390,000. Listed at $365,000. Living area: 1,000 sq.-ft. 4 rooms; 2 bedrooms, 1 baths. On the market: 45 days.

 

Belmont Home of the Week: 115 Winn St.

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Here is a “win-Winn” for a buyer looking for charming rather then bigness in Belmont.

(Realtors: feel free to use “win-Winn” when you are advertising a listing on the street.)

The six-room Cape-style at 115 Winn St. is your typical WWII construction, a mere 1,267 sq.-ft. (most condos in town have about the same space) so it’s a bit tight. But unlike a townhouse or a top-floor condo, you’ll have a HOUSE on a mostly quiet street (you will hear the MBTA commuter trains come by in the early morning and late night) on your own lot that includes a deck.

On the ground floor, there is a fire-placed living room, a formal dining room, an updated kitchen, a den with a bow-front window overlooking the yard and half bath. The den’s 70’s inspired-walls will remind you of the Beatles’ song, “Norwegian Wood,” complete with exposed knotted-wood panels installed on an 45-degree angle. Not to everyone’s taste, to say the least.

The second level has two bedrooms and full bath, the basement has a family room which can also be used as a third bedroom with access to a full bath.

Additional features include hardwood floors, a one-car garage, the afore mentioned deck, it is a short walk to the Winn Brook Elementary, Joey’s Park, municipal tennis courts, public transportation, Belmont Center and all major routes out of town.

Price: $649,000.

Listed by Barbara Nolan of Coldwell Banker, 617-901-6900

Comparing Homes: Belmont, Mass and Belmont, Miss

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Belmont, Mississippi, located hard on the Alabama state line in the northeastern corner of the state, has everything you need for country living: wide open spaces, nearby lakes, cheap land and not that many people so you won’t feel crowded. There are barely 2,000 folks in this town – the entire school system has just over 1,500 students – with little in the way of industry in that part of Tishomingo County where the median income for a household in the town was $29,702, and the median income for a family was $37,639.

So what sort of house can you buy in Belmont, Mississippi and here, in the Bay State’s Belmont for the same amount?Frankly, it’s a bit more difficult than one would expect as many residential structures in “The Magnolia State” barely reach the lowest price for the most basic condo in the “Town of Homes.” But one does breach the minimum benchmark, and it’s the most expensive house on the market in 38827 zip code.

For approximately $685,000, you get a lot in Belmont, Mississippi: a lakefront farmhouse at 23 Country Road 76 which overlooks a stocked six acre spring-fed lake (one of four ponds on the property) on 160 acres of land. That’s a quarter square mile! The single-story main building is 3,400 sq.-ft. with five beds, three-and-a-half bath with a stone fireplace, cathedral ceiling and a large eat-in kitchen. The house also has a typical Southern semi wrap-around porch along with an oversized double garage. “Lots of Deer and Turkey on this land also. Hunt and Fish and Garden on you very own Property!!!”

Here in Belmont, Mass., for $679,000, the buyer can purchase a 65-year-old Garrison-styled Colonial at 24 Eliot Rd., a whopping 1,418 sq.-ft. with seven rooms, three beds and one-and-a-half baths. You also get a one car attached garage that includes a breezeway as well as additional parking for two in the driveway. As for water, you will only be a few hundred feet from other Little Pond and Clay Pit Pond (although you will need to cross the MBTA tracks to get to Clay Pit). You will have land out back, just a hundredth of the size you’d get down south.

Sold in Belmont: Pretty Payson Terrace Colonial Goes for a Million

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

• 352 School St. English Tudor-style (1933), Sold for: $960,000. Listed at $859,000. Living area: 2,209 sq.-ft. 9 rooms; 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths. On the market: 54 days.

• 34 Falmouth St. Philadelphia-style two-family with Dutch Gambrel roof (1912), Sold for: $880,000. Listed at $799,000. Living area: 3,076 sq.-ft. 12 rooms; 6 bedrooms, 2.5 baths. On the market: 53 days.

• 207 Claflin St. Colonial (1930), Sold for: $875,000. Listed at $875,000. Living area: 1,766 sq.-ft. 7 rooms; 3 bedrooms, 1.5 baths. On the market: 60 days.

• 100 Common St. #6. Two-floor condominium in the Grand Commons Mansion, Sold for: $477,000. Listed at $499,000. Living area: 1,668 sq.-ft. 5 rooms; 3 bedrooms, 2 baths. On the market: 115 days.

• 11 Maple St. Two-family (1910), Sold for: $705,000. Listed at $759,900. Living area: 2,693 sq.-ft. 12 rooms; 5 bedrooms, 3 baths. On the market: 84 days.

• 23 Clairemont Rd. Colonial revival on “Old Belmont Hill” (1933), Sold for: $1,720,000. Listed at $1,600,000. Living area: 3,450 sq.-ft. 14 rooms; 7 bedrooms, 3.5 baths. On the market: 77 days.

 • 49 Payson Ter. Brick, center-entrance Colonial (1925), Sold for: $1,020,000. Listed at $1,095,000. Living area: 2,731 sq.-ft. 10 rooms; 4 bedrooms, 3.5 baths. On the market: 63 days.

Belmont House of the Week: 37 Franklin St.

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A friend of mine once complained that newly-constructed homes have expanded in size to where “you need a pair of roller skates to get from the bedroom to the bath.”

“What has happened to a cozy house?” she pondered.

For those of a similar mind, then seek out residential structures built during and immediately after the Depression of the 1930s. Attempting to keep building costs down, homes were built with necessity in mind, rather than the conspicuous consumption of “The Roaring ’20”: “[L]arge homes were built in the 1930′s, but they were less ornate and less concerned with the type of aesthetics common during the Victorian era” according to the website House Crazy. Livable space was at a premium with every inch used with the modern concept of personal space limited to closing the bedroom door.

If you’re looking for cozy, the white house for sale on Franklin Street should be considered. The 1937 Colonial has ten rooms in approximately 1,900 sq.-ft. located on a fifth of an acre. The house has a front-to-back living room with fireplace, wainscoting, crown molding and French doors. There is a grand-screened porch with kitchen and dining room access for outdoor entertaining three-quarters of the year. The dining room has chair rails, and lead glass beveled windows over-looking the screened porch. The kitchen has plenty of storage and room for a table and chairs. There is an electric stove, but the is a gas connection. A study, just off the living room, can also be used as a play room or office. The second floor has four to five bedrooms, one currently being used as a library, all having polished hardwood floors and new windows and the space provides lots of options to keep as-is or reconfigure for an additional bath and/or laundry. The property also has a garage and walk-up attic as well.

Price: $799,000

Listed by: Century 21 Adams KC, Anne Mahon

 

Five Open Houses in Belmont this Weekend

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From top-end to really affordable, these open houses are ready for you to walk through this summer weekend.

232 Prospect St. (Single family) 11 rooms, 4 bedroom, 3.5 baths. 2 car garage. Livable space: 3,220 sq.-ft. Lot size: 0.23 acres. What else? “Fabulous” third floor with spacious office, skylights, hardwood floors, bedroom, en suite bath, great for home office/teenage retreat or au pair suite. Price: $1,375,000. Open house: Saturday, Aug 2, 2:30 p.m. to 4 p.m.

18 B St. (Townhouse condo) 9 rooms, 4 beds, 4 baths. 1 car garage. Livable space: 2,957 sq.-ft. Lot size: 0.19 acres. What else? Brand new construction with three “stunning” floors with flexibility of use. Price: $885,000. Open House: Sunday, Aug. 3, 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

37 Franklin St. (Single family) 10 rooms, 4 beds. 1.5 baths. 1 car garage. Livable space: 1,896 sq.-ft. Lot Size: 0.20 acres. What else? A grand screened porch with kitchen and dining room access for outdoor entertaining 3/4 of the year. Price: $799,000. Open House: Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 2 and 3, 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.

134 Beech St. (Townhouse condo) 6 rooms, 3 beds, 2.5 baths. Livable space: 1,400 sq.-ft. Lot size: 0.12 acres. What else? New construction, the first floor offers nine foot ceilings with the second floor offers a cathedral ceiling master bedroom with ample closet space. Price: $619,000. Open House: Sunday, Aug. 3, noon to 2 p.m.

39 Barlett Ave. (Single family) 10 rooms, 2 beds. 2 baths. 1 car garage. Livable space: 1,674 sq.-ft. Lot Size: 0.07 acres. What else? Move in condition offering old-world charm with all of the modern amenities. Price: $549,900. Open House: Sunday, Aug. 3, 11:45 a.m. to 1 p.m.