Billerica Center Painters — Around the town common

This is where the town began. The Massachusetts Historical Commission's survey of Billerica places the first meetinghouse on the south side of the common in 1659, and describes the center today as a group of civic buildings around that common with a small Victorian residential district along the main street. The Billerica Town Common District, roughly bounded by Cummings Street, Concord Road and Boston Road, was entered on the National Register in 1973; its listing names Federal, Greek Revival and Late Victorian buildings, among them two churches and the town hall.

The houses follow the same layers. The MHC report says that between 1870 and 1915, new homes at the Center leaned toward side-hall plans and modest single-family designs in late Italianate, Queen Anne and Colonial Revival dress. The town's unofficial historical resources list dates several houses between 30 and 60 Concord Road from 1830 to about 1900, with a group at c.1845 and another at c.1900.

Census Tract 3161.02, Block Group 4 contains the town hall and the Concord Road end of the common. Of its 512 housing units, 33.8% were built in 1939 or earlier, another 31.1% in the 1960s, and 86.1% before 1980. Single-family detached homes are 72.1% of units, and about one in five sits in a building of three to nine apartments. These are block-group estimates with wide margins of error, and the line does not match the village exactly.

A local historic district with a paint-color exemption

The Center is one of Billerica's local historic districts, and its commission reviews exterior changes. Under the by-law posted on the town site, paint color on buildings used only as residences is outside the commission's authority, while color on commercial or mixed-use buildings is not. Replacing trim, railings or siding with different materials can still need approval, so ask the commission for a free non-applicability letter before work starts.

Two very different eras on the same street

About a third of the homes in this block group date from before 1940 and nearly as many from the 1960s. An 1800s house that has carried decades of coats may need scraping and spot priming wherever paint has failed, while a sound 1960s surface may need only washing and a topcoat. Our exterior painting page for Billerica explains how prep is matched to the surface.

Lead-safe rules for pre-1978 homes

With 86.1% of units built before 1980, original paint here may contain lead. Federal RRP rules apply to paid work that disturbs paint in housing built before 1978, which means containment, controlled removal and verified cleanup. The lead-safe painting page covers what that involves.

Small apartment buildings near the common

Roughly a fifth of units in this block group are in buildings of three to nine apartments. Painting one of them means arranging access to each unit's windows and porches with the people who live there. For association-run buildings, see condo painting in Billerica.