Arlington Heights Painters — Upland side of Arlington

The Massachusetts Historical Commission's 1980 survey of Arlington names two high prominences, Arlington Heights and Turkey Hill, as the edge of the Fells Upland, the higher ground that an escarpment separates from the flat Boston Basin plain to the east. The Heights were subdivided in 1873 around a railroad depot and small commercial center, and streetcar service later brought multifamily houses into the mix. The same survey notes Tudor, Colonial Revival and Dutch Colonial single-family homes of the 1920s in scattered spots here, plus a large mansard Italianate building of about 1870, Dr. Ring's Sanitarium.

Before the subdivisions, this was Peirce family farmland. Three of their houses still stand where Claremont and Oakland Avenues meet, set at an angle to the street grid because they predate it. They form the Peirce Farm Historic District on the National Register: a Federal and Greek Revival house of about 1830, a clapboard side-hall house of about 1835, and a temple-front Greek Revival house of about 1850 with a colonnaded porch wrapping two sides.

Census figures split the area across more than one tract. In Census Tract 3566.02, which includes Claremont and Oakland Avenues, 65.3% of housing units were built in 1939 or earlier and 54.1% are single-family detached. Up the hill in Tract 3565, which includes Crescent Hill and Westminster Avenue, the stock is younger: 34.8% predates 1940, while 19.0% went up in the 1950s alone.

Crescent Hill's small decorated cottages

Crescent Hill began in the 1870s as a cooperative subdivision meant for buyers of modest means. Its National Register house at 160 Westminster Avenue, from about 1882, is clapboard with punched gable trusses, scroll-cut porch brackets and Italianate window hoods. Trim like that has many faces and end-grain edges, so scraping and priming it is slow, careful work, and every joint is a place for water to get behind the paint.

Shingles stained or painted dark

The 1898 Taylor-Dallin House at 69 Oakland Avenue, sculptor Cyrus Dallin's home, is sheathed in dark brown wood shingles, on a house its nomination describes as a blend of Shingle and Colonial Revival styles. Before recoating, it matters whether the shingles carry solid stain, semi-transparent stain or paint, because each takes a different product, and switching from paint back to a penetrating stain is rarely possible.

Steep lots and ledge

Nomination forms describe Crescent Hill as a rocky landscape and place the Westminster Avenue house at the top of a steep hillside. On a slope, ladders need leveled footing, and a back wall can stand a full story taller than the front, which affects staging and the time a job takes.

A local historic district on the Lexington line

The Mount Gilboa/Crescent Hill local historic district, created in 1991 and amended in 2015, covers lots along Crescent Hill Avenue, Montague Street and Westmoreland Avenue up to the town line. The town's district commissions don't review paint colors, but removing trim or changing siding there goes before them, and shutters taken down for painting require prior notice.