{"nrhp_refnum":"84002659","name":"House at 11 Beach Street","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"11 Beach St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Reading","county":"Middlesex County","state":"MA","lat":42.521997302000045,"lon":-71.09564069199996,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1984-07-19","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Community Planning and Development","Commerce","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A modest Stick/Queen Anne style house at 11 Beech Street in Reading, Massachusetts, built about 1880-1889 on speculation for Emily Ruggles. It has clapboard and shingle walls and sits on a mounded lot.","why_significant":"The house is significant as part of the speculative real-estate ventures common in mid- to late 19th-century Reading. It is also tied to businesswoman Emily Ruggles and is an example of a modest Queen Anne residence. It retains integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship and feeling.","narrative":"Built between 1880 and 1889 on Beech Street in Reading, this modest Queen Anne house with Stick-style details was put up on speculation, along with an identical neighbor. Emily Ruggles, a well-known townswoman, had both built. She ran a dry goods store called Ruggles' Bazaar, later opened a real-estate business, and in 1875 bought a large tract of land off Green Street, hoping to profit as Reading shifted from farming to suburban living. Most of her ventures were unsuccessful. The house has a gable-end, side-hall plan, a high brick foundation on a mounded site, fish-scale shingles, a Stick-style gable screen and a plain entrance porch with mass-produced balusters. A rear extension suits the long, narrow lot. Later occupant Oscar Lowande, a circus performer who toured Cuba, lived here with his family from 1903. The house is valued for its link to speculative development, to Ruggles, and for its architecture.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Stick-Queen Anne","criteria":["A","B","C"],"status_note":"Alterations include a rear extension and an enclosed porch; the Lowande family has lived in the house since 1903.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:11:56.946308-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/79/7919/63791979/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/84002659.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/84002659/ffa2a73c8e-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/84002659/ffa2a73c8e-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","author":"User:Magicpiano","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ReadingMA_11BeachStreet.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">User:Magicpiano</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ReadingMA_11BeachStreet.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63791979","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_at_11_Beach_Street","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5913903"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/middlesex-county/house-at-11-beach-street-84002659/"}