Hyde Avenue Historic District

Hyde Avenue in Newton Corner is a small residential district of five houses on ample lots with ornamental gardens and specimen trees, built between 1880 and the 1890s. The group includes a Queen Anne house at 36 Hyde Avenue from 1880, an unusual Shingle Style house at 42 Hyde Avenue from 1885, another Queen Anne house at 52, and Colonial Revival houses at 59 and 62. The land was once part of the Hyde Estate, a 43-acre farm and nursery owned by a family that had lived in Newton Corner since the 17th century. By the 1880s the village had about 4,000 residents and was regarded as a prestigious Boston suburb, helped by streetcar and commuter rail links. George Hyde, who died in 1892, began parcelling off the estate in that decade, and the lots sold quickly. The district was listed for its cohesive scale, setback and residential use, and for showing stylistic variety within a single decade of development.