South Salem Painters — Lafayette Street, Ocean Avenue and Loring Avenue

South Salem is a broad area, and its northern edge includes the Point, which that district’s National Register nomination places in South Salem between the South River and Palmer’s Cove. Farther south along Lafayette Street the story is different. A Salem State University archive photo, taken looking down Lafayette from about the Ocean Avenue corner, is captioned as showing houses that are mostly still standing, because the 1914 fire did not reach that far south.

Part of that surviving stretch is protected. The city’s map of the Lafayette Street Local Historic District shows its parcels running from about No. 238 to No. 310 Lafayette, crossing Willow Avenue and Ocean Avenue between Holly Street and Summit Avenue at the north and Clifton Avenue and Eden Street at the south. It is one of four local historic districts in Salem, along with McIntire, Derby Street and Washington Square.

Away from Lafayette, published detail on individual South Salem streets is thin, so the clearest picture comes from census data. Census Tract 2041.01, which includes parts of Lafayette, Ocean and Loring Avenues, reports 66.8% of its 2,028 units built in 1939 or earlier and just 4.9% built since 2000. Two-family buildings hold 26.5% of units and three- and four-family buildings another 39.3%, against 21.3% in detached single-family houses. No units in the tract are in buildings of 50 or more, and 52.9% of occupied units are owner-occupied.

Historic review on part of Lafayette Street

Inside the Lafayette Street district, the Historical Commission’s guidelines require a Certificate of Appropriateness for paint-color changes visible from a public way, and they list windows, doors, porches and storms by name. Repainting in the existing colors is handled with a Certificate of Non-Applicability. Houses outside the mapped parcels are not under that review.

Multi-family houses with shared exteriors

With nearly two-thirds of units in the tract in two- to four-family buildings, an exterior job frequently covers stacked porches, several entry doors and units owned or rented separately. Whoever controls the building, one owner or an association, has to agree on colors, schedule and access before work begins.

Pre-war layers on porches and trim

Two-thirds of the tract's housing dates from 1939 or earlier, well before the 1978 federal ban on lead in residential paint. Scraping porch columns, rails and window casings disturbs those layers, which is why lead-safe setup matters; see our lead-safe painting page.

Paint-removal rules in the historic district

The Commission's guidelines state that removing paint requires a Health Department permit, that electric sanding of exterior surfaces is prohibited, and that abrasive blasting needs a Board of Health variance. Prep plans for houses in the Lafayette district should be built around those limits.