architectural trivia

[hissilliness.livejournal.com]

Is 69 Victoria the smallest freestanding house in Somerville, or what?

Comments

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

That's adorable! I love tiny houses.

[ron_newman]

Wow - that's a house? I used to regularly visit someone around the corner from there, and somehow never noticed this house.

[hissilliness.livejournal.com]

I would be surprised to learn that it was not owned by the owner of 71 next door, but it does seem to have its own numerical address.

[mzrowan.livejournal.com]

According to the city assessor's database (http://data.visionappraisal.com/somervillema/parcel.asp?pid=2188&bnum=2), it's part of 71. And it's all of 297 square feet. Awww...

[hissilliness.livejournal.com]

Should that link lead to the parcel in question? If so, it doesn't seem to be working for me.

[mzrowan.livejournal.com]

Huh, it does for me -- 71 Victoria St, Building 2 of 2. If that's not working, look up 71 Victoria here (http://data.visionappraisal.com/somervillema/search.asp).

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

http://data.visionappraisal.com/SomervilleMA/findpid.asp?iTable=pid&pid=2188

That should work. If you click on "next building" it will show #69.

[ron_newman]

The assessor's map shows it to share a lot with the house to its left, which I assume is #71 (though the map calls the whole lot #69).

[mzrowan.livejournal.com]

Ha! Great minds think alike. ;-)

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

I've always assumed that was the garage for the house on the corner and they converted it into an in-law apartment or somesuch. I've seen that sort of thing before, anyway.

[pearlythebunny.livejournal.com]

There's also a really tiny house at the corner of Cameron Ave. and Malvern Ave. in Somerville. It's not as cute as this house, however.

There is a TINY but beautiful house

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

behind Davis Sq. Forgot the address, but it looks like a doll house.

Re: There is a TINY but beautiful house

[ron_newman]

'behind' in which direction?

Re: There is a TINY but beautiful house

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

Coming from Porter Sq via Orchard. Not on Orchard, though. Could be off Chester or Davis St... I'll take note of the address next time.

Re: There is a TINY but beautiful house

[ron_newman]

We don't have a Davis Street, just Day and Dover streets. If you can pin it down any further I'd love to find it, since it would be within a block of my apartment.

[rethcir.livejournal.com]

Yikes, I've seen bedrooms bigger than that. It doesn't show up on the city assessor's database though, so maybe it's a part of one of the adjacent properties?

[ron_newman]

It is in the assessor's database as a second house on a lot. See comments above.

Maybe the smallest in Somerville....

[genevra-mcneil.livejournal.com]

But I think that this one, in Cambridge, at the corner of Concord and Appleton, (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=appleton+and+concord,+Cambridge,+Ma&sll=42.391511,-71.110801&sspn=0.012726,0.019312&g=263+Highland+Ave,+Somerville,+MA+02143&ie=UTF8&ll=42.38329,-71.132891&spn=0.006364,0.009656&z=17&iwloc=addr&layer=c&cbll=42.383355,-71.133037&panoid=PFWtG0WGbgj6wgcqQeguuw&cbp=12,180,,0,5.000000000000001) might be the smallest in the area. (More trivia -- this "spite house" was made mildly famous as Holly Winter's neighbor in Susan Conant's Dog Lover Murder Mystery Series! Holly lived in the house adjacent.)

Re: Maybe the smallest in Somerville....

[hissilliness.livejournal.com]

For other people new to this term, Wikipedia's article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spite_house) is pretty awesome.

Was that building a toy store for a while, or am I thinking of a different bit of Concord Ave?

little house

[victoria-street.livejournal.com]

It's very strange to find out that complete strangers are discussing your house!
Here's a bit of info:
As far as we know... #69 Victoria is actually older than #71 by a few years, probably built in 1950. (house is 1953, we think. It was a mom and pop store back in the 50s. Rudy the upholsterer said that he used to get penny candy there after school (Immaculate Conception School). When the walls were painted we found hand-written signs on the wall with the prices of ice cream and candy.
It is a metal frame building, probably built from a kit. It has a full basement, and at some point it had central air conditioning.

At some point it was an appliance repair shop. By the time we bought it in 1986 it had been converted to an apartment- badly... We have fixed it up a bit and it's now quite cute on the inside.

I'm sure it is the smallest free-standing house in Somerville, though technically it is part of our two-family property. Our tenant would love us to sell it to him as a condo. Real estate folks failed miserably when we refinanced and they needed to find "comparables"

Re: little house

[jokabri.livejournal.com]

It did indeed used to be a small grocery store. I remember it as a kid ('60s).

[tt02144.livejournal.com]

You beat me to it! I was going to say that it looks like it was originally some sort of small store. There are lots of houses in Somerville, with odd little additions, or side sections, that used to serve as small 'convenience' stores back in the day.