Belvidere Painters — Belvidere Hill, the Oaklands & High Street

The Belvidere Hill Historic District, listed on the National Register in 1995, counts 128 structures, most of them built between 1845 and 1945. A 1981 state survey form outlines the hill as about 38 acres between Wyman, Belmont, Fairview and Nesmith Streets, and names Belmont Avenue as the city's highest elevation. Apart from one or two mid-century houses on Nesmith Street, major development came after 1868. Italianate and Second Empire houses led until the 1880s; Queen Anne houses then mixed wall materials, turrets and applied woodwork, and Colonial Revival took over in the 1890s and 1900s. The house at 86 Belmont Avenue is Romanesque Revival in rough-faced granite, and a granite retaining wall lines Fairmount Street.

Below the hill, the survey of Belvidere Village found that almost nothing of the 1820s settlement remains beyond about half a dozen two-and-a-half-story Federal houses on High Street and small side-hall Greek Revival houses on High and East Merrimack Streets, a few of them brick. Elsewhere in the area, the Oaklands was platted in 1890 with 450 lots and a required 50-foot setback; its builders favored Colonial Revival, with modified Shingle Style in the 1890s. Belvidere Park, laid out in 1909, had small two-story frame houses and fewer than 40 of them by 1936.

Census figures for the tract that includes 216 Nesmith Street show a broader picture than the historic district alone: 1,672 housing units, 57.4% of them single-family detached and 67.6% owner-occupied. Only 33.6% were built in 1939 or earlier, while 33.8% date from the 1960s and 1970s.

Queen Anne houses with several wall materials

Where a Queen Anne front combines clapboard, shingle courses and applied woodwork, each surface holds paint differently and weathers at its own pace. Shingles take finish into their end grain, and turned and sawn ornament needs brush work that flat siding doesn't.

Height and towers on the hill

Turrets, tall Second Empire mansards and three-story elevations on a sloped lot mean planning access: where staging can stand, whether a lift fits the drive, and how to protect plantings and a carriage house below.

Stone left unpainted

Rough-faced granite, like the Belmont Avenue house and the Fairmount Street wall, is meant to show as stone. On a house that mixes masonry and wood, the job is the wood trim, sash and porches, with the stone masked off.

Review covers demolition, not paint

In the Belvidere Hill Neighborhood District, created in 2005, the Historic Board reviews demolition, partial demolition and new construction. The city's district pages don't list painting. Removing a porch or decorative trim can be a different matter, so ask Historic Board staff before stripping details off.

Pre-1980 paint across eras

In the Nesmith Street tract, 80.4% of units predate 1980, which takes in the postwar houses as well as the Victorians. Any of them can carry lead paint; see lead-safe painting.