Fisher Hill Painters — Clinton, Buckminster & Fisher Avenue

The Brookline Historical Commission's 1983 area survey puts the district at roughly 150 acres, bounded by Boylston Street, Chestnut Hill Avenue, Clinton Road and Sumner Road. The hill stands 240 feet above sea level, its south side looks over the Brookline Reservoir, and two more reservoirs, one open and one covered, sit on either side of Fisher Avenue at the summit. Frederick Law Olmsted and John Charles Olmsted drew a curvilinear subdivision to follow the uneven ground; Clinton and Buckminster Roads, built in 1888, were laid out fifty feet wide.

The housing the survey describes is primarily large, free-standing single-family homes, most from the last two decades of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th. Its style list is long: Queen Anne, Shingle, Jacobethan, Colonial, Georgian, Medieval Revival and Craftsman. Firms whose work appears on the hill include Peabody and Stearns; Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge; Kilham and Hopkins; Chapman and Frazer; and Hartwell and Richardson.

Single-family character was deliberate. In 1914, 165 property owners signed a covenant against apartment houses, two-family houses, public garages, stores and hospitals, written to run through 1940. There are older outliers, too: the Boylston-Hyslop-Lee House at 617 Boylston Street goes back to the 1730s, and the Benjamin Goddard House at 43 Sumner Road is a Federal house of 1810. The district was listed on the National Register in 1985.

Height and grade together

Large houses on a hill with curving roads put ladders and staging on sloped lawns. A high gable over a downhill side can need staging where the uphill side takes a ladder. Setup is planned elevation by elevation.

Many styles, many surfaces

The survey's style list runs from Queen Anne and Shingle to Georgian, Medieval Revival and Craftsman, and the 1880–81 Peabody and Stearns mansion on the old Stone estate was built of brick and shingle. Shingle, clapboard and masonry each need their own prep and products, so neighboring houses on one road can call for different specifications.

National Register status and Brookline's demolition by-law

For buildings listed on or eligible for the Register, Brookline's demolition-delay by-law can impose an 18-month stay and also covers systematic removal of exterior architectural elements. Paint itself is not removal, but tearing off and not replacing a porch rail or bracket run is a question for the Preservation Commission before it happens.

Estate buildings turned into condos

Fisher Hill Estates, built from 1981, folded four older estate buildings into new attached and detached homes, with the two mansions converted into three units and the carriage house into five. Where one building has several owners, find out who signs off on exterior work and whose wall is whose before scheduling, as with any condo painting job in Brookline.