{"nrhp_refnum":"85002681","name":"Bassett, Maria, House","other_names":["#11"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"8 College Ave.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Arlington","county":"Middlesex County","state":"MA","lat":42.42790278600006,"lon":-71.15327893599994,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1985-09-27","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A single-family Italianate house at 8 College Avenue in Arlington, Massachusetts, built around 1850-1870 as a farmhouse on a hillside overlooking the Mystic Lakes. The architect is unknown.","why_significant":"The nomination calls it the grandest of the remaining Italianate houses in the area, with well-executed details such as heavy double brackets, dentil courses and boldly molded window surrounds. It is also one of the earliest houses in Arlington's northwest corner, which did not fully develop until the 1920s and 1930s. It may have been associated with the dairy farming known on the hills above the lakes.","narrative":"Built around 1850 as a farmhouse, this Italianate house at 8 College Avenue in Arlington sits on a hillside with a view of the Mystic Lakes. It remains a residence today. The building is described as the grandest of the remaining Italianate houses in the area. Heavy double brackets, dentil courses and boldly molded window surrounds mark it as a well-executed example of the style. A polygonal bay with a flat roof on paired brackets projects from the side, and a single-story porch wraps the front and side, decorated with brackets, dentils, paired columns and turned spindles. The porch and balcony may have been added or slightly altered later. Twentieth-century asbestos siding covers the exterior. The house is one of the earliest in Arlington's northwest corner, an area that did not fully develop until the 1920s and 1930s. The hills above the lakes were known for dairy farming in the later nineteenth century, and the house may have been tied to that activity. It was listed for its architecture.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Italianate","criteria":["C"],"status_note":"Present use is residential; originally a farmhouse. Twentieth-century asbestos siding is the major alteration noted.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:11:56.481524-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/98/7909/63790998/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/85002681.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/85002681/005819b846-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/85002681/005819b846-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","author":"User:Magicpiano","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ArlingtonMA_MariaBassettHouse.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:ArlingtonMA_MariaBassettHouse.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63790998","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Bassett_House","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6761044"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/middlesex-county/bassett-maria-house-85002681/"}