North Lexington Street Historic District

Along a busy stretch of Lexington Street in Waltham stand four large houses and a dairy barn that together recall a family milk business. The land was bought in 1681 by Jonathan Sanderson, but building began only after 1865, when blacksmith Elias B. Armstrong built the Italianate house at 508 Lexington. William G. Childs followed in 1873 with a Mansard house, moving his milk business there from Pond Street. His sons Arthur and William B. Childs built Colonial Revival houses on either side, in 1901 and between 1904 and 1907, and expanded the dairy after their father's death in 1902. Of the large complex of farm buildings behind the houses, only the barn, with twin cupolas and largely original clapboards, remains. The Childs Brothers business shifted partly to Somerville in the 1920s and closed in 1929. The district is notable because such a cohesive group of period houses and outbuildings is unusual on this now-modernized road.