Oak Hill Painters — South Newton, at the West Roxbury line

The city's history page places Oak Hill at Newton's southern tip, on the West Roxbury line, roughly between the Mt. Ida campus, Dedham Street, the Charles River and the Boston city limits. After the war, the city picked an old sand and gravel pit here for housing returning veterans. Under a 1946 state act it borrowed $1,250,000 on its own bonds, without state or federal money, and called the result Oak Hill Park: 412 houses, a school and a shopping center. The city's history page calls it Newton's largest single municipal project.

The Kelly Company of Arlington started building in June 1948 and finished in thirteen months. A 2002 brochure from the Planning Department and Historical Commission describes 'small but modern cottage style homes' drawn from six basic designs, each with three bedrooms, no basement and oil-fired radiant heat. Shutters and window boxes came standard. Buyers picked a hip or gable roof and one of three sidings: clapboard, cedar shingle or asbestos shingle. The 33 streets and paths carry the names of Newton residents killed in the war.

That uniform start has been broken up over seventy-plus years. By 2002, the same brochure noted, many cottages had gained second-floor additions and a growing number had been torn down for much larger modern houses, with intact examples still standing south of Saw Mill Brook Parkway. A walk down one Oak Hill Park street can pass an original single-story cottage, an expanded one, and a new build. In Census Tract 3740, which covers the Saw Mill Brook Parkway business area and part of the surrounding neighborhood (it does not line up exactly with Oak Hill Park), about 77% of homes are single-family detached and 86% are owner-occupied.

Know which siding you have before anyone scrapes

Because asbestos shingle was one of the three original choices, an Oak Hill Park cottage that still wears its first siding may have cement-asbestos shingles under the paint. Intact shingles can usually be cleaned gently and painted, but they should not be sanded, ground or power-washed hard. If the material is uncertain, a lab test settles it before prep begins. Cedar shingle and clapboard houses get conventional scraping and priming instead.

Old cottage, new second story

An addition put on decades after 1949 often uses different siding, trim profiles and paint than the original first floor. Painting the whole house in one scheme hides the seam, but the two halves may need different primers and prep. Original 1940s surfaces are old enough to contain lead, so disturbing them falls under the rules on our lead-safe painting page.

Shutters, window boxes and a low roofline

Shutters and window boxes came standard, and wood ones take a beating from rain and planter water; on a one-story house they sit at eye level, so worn ones show. Taking shutters down to paint all sides lasts longer than brushing them in place. A single-story eave is also easy to reach, which keeps staging simple compared with a three-story Victorian.

Street trees planted with the neighborhood

Planners lined the streets with maples and the footpaths with lindens. Where trees from that planting, or their replacements, now shade a house, the canopy slows drying on the walls beneath and drops sap and debris on siding and decks. Washing and a mildew treatment are part of prep on the shaded sides.