Quincy, Mass. Historical and Architectural Survey

103 Billings Road

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE
The Atlantic neighborhood in North Quincy is bordered by the Neponset River to the North and Quincy Bay to the East. It was once part of Dorchester and with the Old North Precinct that had split off from Braintree, became part of the Town of Quincy in 1792. The Jockey Club of Boston set up the first mile track course in the state in 1812 in a section of Atlantic known as Billings Plains and less than one hundred years later the track was filled in with new homes. Like its neighbors, Montclair and Wollaston, most of the community of Atlantic was built in the first third of the 20th century. From colonial times until the Civil War North Quincy was referred to as "The Farms" and it was the large Newbury, Wilson, Billings' and Glover farms that were split up for residences by real estate developers David H. MacKay, Henry Hunt, Maurice E. Kilpatrick, John E. Poland, Henry J. Grass and Charles M. Conant, Henry Blackwell, and Walter Webb. The development process was greatly accelerated by the Old Colony Railroad which began operations in 1845, eventually establishing stations in Atlantic, Norfolk Downs (the southern section of Atlantic), and Wollaston as well as by the advent of Quincy's extensive street railway system.

Number 103 Billings Road was still part of the Billings Estate in 1888. For generations this area of Norfolk Downs had been known as Billings Plains because of the two large adjoining farms of Caleb Billings and John Alfred Billings. The house was built about 1905 by Charles E. White, a traveling salesman. By 1923 the new owner was Fred A. Barlett, M.D.

BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES
Assessors Records.
H. Hobart Holly, Quincy Historical Society.
H. Hobart Holly, ed. Quincy: 350 Years, 1974, p. 4.
William S. Pattee. A History of Old Braintree and Quincy, 1878, p. 55.
Quincy Patriot Ledger. 100th Anniversary. January 7, 1937, p. G-14.
John Ramsdell. "Historic North Quincy". ["Written about 1934"]. Typed manuscript at Quincy Historical Society.
Vincent J. Scully, Jr. The Shingle Style and The Stick Style. Yale University Press, 1971.
Daniel Munro Wilson. Three Hundred Years of Quincy 1625-1925. 1925, p. 280-281.

ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE:
The Shingle Style which followed the exhuberant Queen Anne Style was favored for sea side and suburban homes. The trend began with the grandiose shingled summer homes of McKim, Mead and White in the 1880s and continued with the fine Shingle Style houses of Willam Ralph Emerson in Massachusetts and john Calvin Stevens in Maine. They were characterized by quiet compact massing, enveloping roofs which were often gambreled, simple classic details and the use of weathered shingles to "wrap", the house. It was considered an American derived architecture which was influenced by the early weathered clapboarded and shingled 17th century houses then being studied with great avidity. The continued interest in the architectural past of the East Coast led soon after to the Colonial Revival Style.

This Shingle Style residence exhibits most of the characteristics of the style, in particular the gable treatment with the curving shingles creating a recess for the window and a protective hood and the presence of the picturesque oriel windows with shaped shingled bases. This shingled house is massed under two large gabled roofs and is fenestrated with irregular windows. It has retained its architectural integrity and identity as a fine example an an early 20th century Shingle Style house. It is an attractive component of the Billings Road streetscape.

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