Nonantum Painters — The Lake, North Newton

For most of its history this corner of the city was called North Village, then Silver Lake, after a pond that once sat between Nevada and Adams Streets. Industry started in 1778 with David Bemis's paper mill on the Charles at Bridge Street, and for the next century and a half the village turned out cotton, woolens and rope. The Nonantum Worsted Company, which took over much of the land between Bridge and Chapel Streets in the 1880s, eventually lent the whole village its name.

Construction boomed between 1860 and 1910 as the factories drew workers: Irish, French Canadian, Italian and Jewish families. The city's walking tour notes that company-built two-family homes were rented to foremen and skilled hands, while unskilled workers often rented single rooms. The mills mostly closed in the early 1900s and the lake was filled in, but the house pattern stayed. The city still describes Nonantum as Newton's most densely populated village.

Census numbers for the tract around Watertown, Adams and Bridge Streets bear that out. About a third of all units sit in two-unit buildings and another 15% in three- and four-unit houses; detached single-family homes are only a fifth. Fewer than half the occupied homes are owner-occupied. Building dates are more spread out than in Newton's estate villages, with a noticeable batch from the 2000s alongside the pre-1940 core.

Narrow side yards and tall walls

In the city's most densely populated village, two-families on close lots mean ladders and staging often have to go up in a few feet of driveway or against a neighbor's fence. Getting at the side walls of a two-and-a-half-story house can require planks, careful setup and a talk with the abutter about access. That logistics work is a real part of any exterior here.

Landlords, tenants and unit turnovers

With more than half of occupied homes rented, a lot of interior work happens between tenants: walls, ceilings and trim refreshed in a vacant unit on a deadline. When tenants stay in place, owners need clear dates, and outside jobs need porches and stairs kept usable. Our condo and multi-unit page explains how shared buildings get scheduled.

Layers on mill-era wood

A worker's house from the 1880s has had well over a century of repaints, and its older coats are likely to include lead. Roughly four in five homes in the tract were built before 1980. Disturbing more than 20 square feet outside or 6 in a room puts the job under the state's lead-safe renovation rules; our lead-safe painting page has the details.

Century-old houses beside 2000s buildings

About 11% of units in the tract date from 2000 to 2009, so a mill-era two-family can stand next door to a building barely twenty years old. The older house needs scraping, spot priming and lead-safe handling; the newer one usually needs far less prep and no lead precautions. A landlord with properties of both ages should expect two quite different scopes.