National Register of Historic Places

House at 18A and 20 Aborn Street

Wakefield, Middlesex County, Massachusetts
Listed
July 5, 1989
Type
Building
Period
Industrial
Ref No.
89000676

About this property

The House at 18A and 20 Aborn Avenue in Wakefield, Massachusetts is a historic house and carriage house with elaborate Queen Anne styling. It was built in the mid-1880s, and is one of the most ornate houses in the neighborhood. The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989. Aborn Avenue is located northeast of downtown Wakefield, and is a short street in a residential neighborhood just east of Lake Quannapowitt. The house is a 2+1⁄2-story wood-frame structure, set on a rise above a fieldstone retaining wall. It has irregular massing typical of the Queen Anne period. Its main part has a rough L shape, but it is studded with porches, bay windows, and an extended porte cochere. Several architectural details appear in several places, including gable sections that project slightly over the main wall surface below, and vertically laid trim below some of the cornices. The former carriage house, which has been fully converted for residential use, carries through some of these details. Aborn Avenue was originally part of a larger property owned by John Aborn, a shoemaker who lived in a house west of this one on Main Street. Aborn and his father-in-law John White owned a successful shoe factory. Aborn's heirs laid out Aborn Avenue and adjacent White Avenue in 1857, and the area was developed in the 1860s and 1870s as a residential area for local middle-class businessmen and tradesmen. Based on map records and stylistic analysis, this house was probably built in the mid-1880s. National Register of Historic Places listings in Wakefield, Massachusetts National Register of Historic Places listings in Middlesex County, Massachusetts

Location

18A and 20 Aborn St.
Wakefield, Middlesex County, Massachusetts
42.51253, -71.07159

Categories

ARCHITECTURE
National Register nomination ›
Sources

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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Nearby Historic Sites

House at 9 White Avenue
Industrial
0.1 mi
House at 196 Main Street
Industrial
0.1 mi
House at 11 Wave Avenue
Industrial
0.1 mi
House at 15 Wave Avenue
Industrial
0.1 mi
House at 190 Main Street
Industrial
0.1 mi

Nearby Battles

Battle of Lancaster (King Philip's War)
1676Colonial
6.7 mi
Battle of Menotomy
1775Revolutionary War
8 mi
Skirmish at Menotomy (Arlington)
1775Revolutionary War
8 mi

Questions about this property

When was House at 18A and 20 Aborn Street listed on the National Register?

House at 18A and 20 Aborn Street was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 5, 1989.

What type of historic resource is House at 18A and 20 Aborn Street?

House at 18A and 20 Aborn Street is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.

What is the period of significance for House at 18A and 20 Aborn Street?

The period of significance for House at 18A and 20 Aborn Street is recorded as the industrial era.

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