Washington Square Painters — Beacon & Washington Streets

Washington Street is the old road here; Brookline writer and planner Linda Olson Pehlke dates it to 1657, when it was laid out to carry cattle from Brookline Village to the stockyards of Brighton and Watertown. Beacon Street arrived in 1851, and after it was widened in 1887 demand for housing took off. Apartment blocks went up along the boulevard, among them The Majestic at 1569–71 Beacon in 1896, while single-family houses and apartments filled the terraced roads climbing the two hills. The 1950s and 1960s added modernist apartment towers to Beacon Street.

The Beacon Street Historic District, listed on the National Register in 1985, names Washington Square as one of the street's three commercial centers. Its inventory around the square lists 1614–22A Beacon (1897), 1617–21 (1898), 1623–39 (1907), 1624–32A (1913) and 1634–54 (1916), next to later buildings such as 1600 Beacon (1959). West of the square, buildings such as 1712–1726 Beacon represent the type the nomination describes for residential Beacon Street: three or four stories, flat roofs, bowed bays and elaborate cornices in red or yellow brick with stone trim.

The square straddles two census tracts that look quite different. Tract 4005, on the 1633 Beacon side, is 64% pre-1940 housing, only about one home in ten is a detached house, and 70% of households rent. Tract 4004.02, which holds 1660 Beacon and the intersection itself, has more detached houses (38%) and 61% owner occupancy, alongside a fifth of its units in buildings of 50 or more.

Brick walls, wood and metal details

Where a Beacon Street block's brick has never been painted, the paint work is the windows, bay framing, entry doors, cornices and any previously painted stone or trim, often three or four stories up above a busy commercial sidewalk. That height and frontage drive the access plan more than the square footage does.

Associations and shared budgets

With fewer than one home in ten in Tract 4005 a detached house, a condominium's exterior and hallway painting is an association decision, and in rental buildings it is the landlord's. Getting the scope written before the vote, and knowing which trim belongs to the common elements, keeps the bid comparable. Our condo painting page covers unit and common-area work.

Hillside houses above the square

Behind Beacon Street, the roads up Corey and Aspinwall Hills filled in with single-family houses and apartments once Beacon was widened. Sloped yards change how ladders and staging are set, and a site visit sorts out which elevations have the worst paint failure and where equipment can stand safely.

Old paint indoors

Tract 4005 has 92% of its homes built before 1980, and 4004.02 has 91%. Sanding window sashes, stripping trim or opening plaster in those units can release lead dust, and federal rules require certified, lead-safe methods above 6 square feet per room. See our lead-safe painting page for details.