Witchcraft Heights Painters — Witch Way, Puritan Road & Crescent Drive

A historical marker the city placed at Highland Avenue and Powder House Lane sums up the area's background. Before 19th-century development the land was the Great Pasture. Highland Avenue began as the Salem & Boston Turnpike, opened in 1802. The marker says the Witchcraft Heights subdivision was developed in the 1960s, and the elementary school that carries its name was built in 1970. Salem Woods, which the city bought in 1906 as Highland Park, and the Old Salem Greens golf course, opened in 1933 as a WPA project, are also in West Salem.

Census Tract 2047.02 covers the subdivision's streets, including Witch Way, Puritan Road, Crescent Drive and Frederick Street, and also takes in older blocks toward Gallows Hill. Its median home was built in 1962, and the 1960s alone account for 22.3% of its 2,587 units, with another 7.5% from the 1950s. Single-family detached houses make up 49.1% of units, and 59.0% of homes are owner-occupied. Citywide, by comparison, only 23.9% of units are detached single-family and the median build year is 1938.

Still lead-era construction

A house from the 1960s was built and first painted before 1978, so its original exterior and trim coats can contain lead. Testing before scraping tells you what you're dealing with, and any disturbance of positive surfaces follows lead-safe work rules.

No historic-district certificate for color

Salem’s four local historic districts are McIntire, Derby Street, Lafayette Street and Washington Square, and the subdivision is in none of them. Changing body or trim color here needs no Historical Commission certificate, so a full color change is as open an option as matching what is there now.

Sixty years of possible re-siding

A house built during the 1960s subdivision boom may still have its first wood clapboard or shingles, or it may have been re-sided in the decades since. Prep, primer and paint differ for wood, aluminum and fiber cement, so the siding on each wall gets identified before a product is chosen.

Single-owner decisions

In the census tract that includes the subdivision, detached houses make up about half of all units, roughly double the citywide share. Where one household owns the whole building, scope, colors and timing can be settled in a single conversation instead of waiting on co-owners or an association.