The House at 21 Chestnut Street is one of the best preserved Italianate houses in
Wakefield, Massachusetts
Wakefield is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, incorporated in 1812 and located about north-northwest of Downtown Boston. Wakefield's population was 27,090 at the 2020 census. Wakefield offer ...
. It was built c. 1855 to a design by local architect
John Stevens, and was home for many years to local historian Ruth Woodbury. The house was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...
in 1989.
Description and history
The house is set on the north side of Chestnut Street, a residential street running east–west between North Avenue and Main Street, the town's major commercial thoroughfares. It is a -story wood-frame structure, with a side-gable roof and clapboard siding. The main facade is three bays wide, with a gable above the central gable, making room for a round-arch two-part window. A single-story hip-roofed porch extends across the front facade, supported by paired columns. The porch roof and main roof both sport paired brackets.
The house was built about 1850, not long after Chestnut Street was laid out (1847). It is one of a series of Italianate houses on the street, and was designed by John Stevens, one of the few architects known to be working in Wakefield in the 19th century. Prominent residents of the house include Nathaniel Dearborn, a
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
printer active in the local militia and as a trustee of Lakeview Cemetery, and Ruth Woodbury, one of the town's best-known historians.
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See also
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References
{{National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Wakefield, Massachusetts
Italianate architecture in Massachusetts
Houses completed in 1850