Quincy, Mass. Historical and Architectural Survey

39 Beach Street

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE
The Wollaston/East neighborhood of Quincy is bounded by Quincy Shore Drive (east), Furnace Brook Parkway (south), the MBTA tracks (west) and Hayward Street-Hancock Street-Albion RoadVassall Street (north) . An outstanding feature of this area is the Josiah Quincy House (1770). Mansion house of the Quincy estate which derived from the original 1635 several thousand acre grant to Edmund Quincy of some of the best farmland in New England. A sizable portion of the estate was not subdivided for the development of late 19th and 20th century housing until the last Quincy sister died in 1893. Other important features in this area are the 83-acre Merrymount Park (1885); historic Blacks Creek, the site of Edmund Quincy's tidal grist mill; and the National Sailors Home Cemetery, the only evidence of the 80-acre National Sailors Home (1865, now demolished) of which 50 acres have become Conservation Commission land. The development process of Wollaston East was greatly accelerated by the Old Colony Railroad which began operations in 1845 as well as by the advent of Quincy's extensive street railway system.

Beach Street was accepted by the Town of Quincy from Hancock Street to Willow Street in 1886. Number 38 Beach Street. which was built on land included in the former Quincy Estate, is located on this stretch of road. The house was built for Robert Fraser, a clerk in Boston, who also had teams. By 1917 the house was owned by Paul C. and Sarah S. Klein who owned the local Klein's Drugstore. located nearby at 663 Hancock Street. Claude Keene, a commercial traveler, owned 38 Beach Street from 1927 to at least the mid-1930's.

BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES
Assessors Records.
Building Permits. alterations.
Hobart Holly, ed. Quincy: 350 Years, 1974.
Robert A. McCaughey. Josiah Quincy, 1772-1864 : The Last Federalist. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974.
William S. Pattee. A History of Old Braintree and Quincy, 1878. p. 310.

ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE:
The Shingle Style which followed the exuberant 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 William 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.

Wollaston/East has numerous Shingle Style houses; amongst them are 29 Beach Street, 3 and 4 Berlin Street, 192 Davis Street and 49 Wollaston Street. The residence at 38 Beach Street is one of these fine examples of the style. It is compactly massed under a high hip roof pierced by one large dormer. It has a front gable with the typical Shingle Style window treatment of shingles curving in to create a recessed window, similar to the one at 29 Beach Street. There are no corner boards; shingles go around the corners, enveloping the house. The facade has a glassed-in and balustraded entrance porch with dentils and classic urns as finials. An oriel window projects from the side elevation pleasantly articulating the surface. The house is set on a typical Quincy granite foundation.' The presence of classical details and the squarish configuration places the house close to the period of the Colonial Revival. It is a significant component in the Wollaston/East area.

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