Cottage Farm Painters — Ivy, Carlton, Prescott & Amory Streets

The neighborhood takes its name from the first houses Amos Lawrence built after buying 200 acres from David Sears in 1850, done in the English Cottage manner Andrew Jackson Downing had made fashionable. The National Register nomination describes 67 acres in the town's northeast corner, the only original part of Brookline that reaches the Charles River, and lists brick, stone, shingles and stucco as the main building materials.

The Town's district page, drawn from a study report of about 1979, walks the streets house by house. The Sears-Talbot House, built before 1844, is stone Gothic Revival with bargeboard trim. The Amos A. Lawrence House on Ivy Street (1851) is stone and was moved between 1897 and 1900 so that it faces Ivy. The Lawrence family's Mansard houses at 90, 96 and 108 Ivy date from around 1855, and the Wells-Catlin House on Prescott Street (1868–71) is brick with brick corbeling.

Later decades added Queen Anne, Georgian Revival and a few Shingle, Italianate and Spanish examples. At 71 and 79 Carlton Street, two 1885–87 houses by John Wales mix brick with shingles; 79 carries a turret and six shingle patterns. The report also notes the concrete Gibbs-Katz House on Chilton Street (1936), described as the first modern-style house in the Boston area.

A certificate before the ladders go up

Inside Brookline's Local Historic Districts, most exterior modifications need Town review through a Certificate of Appropriateness, a Certificate of Non-Applicability or a hardship certificate, and applying after work begins triples the fee. Whether color alone is reviewed we could not confirm, so a call to Preservation staff comes first.

Painted wood is often the trim, not the wall

With stone and brick walls on many of the oldest houses, the painted surfaces are bargeboards, porch parts, window sash, cornices and dormers. That work is detailed and height-heavy even when the square footage is modest.

Brick that was already painted

The report notes the Lawrence-Chaplin House, an early-1850s brick cottage, has been painted white. Once masonry carries paint, it calls for a coating made for masonry and careful prep; unpainted brick and stone are best left that way, and in a historic district that choice may need review.

Patterned shingles and terracotta

The Carlton Street pair mixes brick with shingles, and 71 adds terracotta geometric detailing on its street gable. Each shingle pattern has its own edges to scrape, and masking has to keep coating off the brick and clay ornament.