Permit History — the House Itself, 1914–2020

If the ownership history traces who held the house, the city’s building permits trace what they did to it. The City of Newton’s records run back over a century, and nearly every era of ownership left its mark in them. Scans of the more substantial permit files are linked (📄).

Date	Permit	Work (as recorded)	Era
Aug 12, 1914	529-14	“Construct piazza on end and rear and build porch on 2nd story 7’×11’”	Jewett
May 1, 1950	681-50	“New sill, approx. 30’, on left side of house and same in the shed. Also repair the foundation with 12’ cement blocks and replace 3 window frames”	Pittorino
Aug 6, 1982	2265-82	Kitchen and bath remodel	Flaherty
Jul 13, 1984	2264-84	“Repairs to stairways, add bath, relocate closet. To be used as a single family dwelling only.” 📄	Shevitz
Aug 28, 1992	3324-92	Demo garage	Highfield
May 12, 1997	2075-97	Basement home office 📄	Highfield
Jul 13, 1999	01066-99	Structural repairs to carrier beam	Highfield
Aug 27, 2008	8080738	Repair front porch and replace deck section	B&B era
Oct 8, 2010	10100199	“Remove existing porch, replace with new porch and deck area, build 2-story stair hall addition, install new window/door casing and siding” 📄 · plans · as-built	B&B era
Feb 24, 2011	11020398	Lights and plugs for new addition	B&B era
Nov–Dec 2012	12110021, 12120257, 12120554	Gravel driveway; 1st-floor half bath (+ plumbing)	B&B era
Mar 19, 2013	13030466	Wire 2nd-floor bathroom	B&B era
Nov 2014 – Jan 2015	14110726, 14120129, 15010494	Renovate 3rd floor: 3 bedrooms → 2 bedrooms + full bath (+ wiring, plumbing)	B&B era
Apr 8, 2016	16040237	3rd-floor AC system cooling 2nd and 3rd floors	B&B era
Nov 30, 2016	16110856	“Remodel kitchen, upgrade left exterior, move garage to Cons. Commission approved location” 📄	B&B era
Jan–Jul 2017	17010424, 17020455, 17020456, 17070840	Rewire kitchen; kitchen vent, washer, water heater; gas oven; basement AC for 1st floor	B&B era
Oct 3, 2018	18100130, 18100137	Rooftop solar (est. 5,791 kWh/yr after shading) 📄	B&B era
Dec 13, 2018	18120409	Low-voltage fire alarm system	B&B era
Nov 24, 2020	20110640	Bathroom exhaust fan	B&B era

A 2011 land survey of the lot, filed with the porch-and-addition project, is also preserved: 📄 plot plan — a modern companion to the 1895 lot layouts.

What the permits tell

The porch has three lives. The earliest permit in the record is Asa Jewett’s 1914 “piazza on end and rear” with a second-story porch — quite possibly the origin of the wraparound porch that the 1991 for-sale ad led with (“twin mulberry trees, wrap around porch…”). That porch was repaired in 2008, then removed and rebuilt entirely in 2010, together with a two-story stair-hall addition — the largest single change to the house since it was moved in about 1895.

The outbuildings come and go. The 1950 Pittorino sill repair mentions “the shed”; the 1991 ad still advertises an “antique & barn”; a 1992 permit — seven weeks after the house changed hands — says “demo garage”; and in 2016 a garage was moved to a Conservation-Commission-approved location. The old barn whose foundation lies under the ivy is somewhere in that sequence, and untangling barn from shed from garage remains an open question.

Each sale leaves a fingerprint. The 1982 kitchen-and-bath remodel came three weeks after the July 1982 purchase and shows up that December as “mod. kit. & baths” in the listing. The 1984 stair repairs — stamped “to be used as a single family dwelling only” — follow the 1983 sale; the garage demolition follows the 1992 sale.

The 21st century professionalized the house. Between 2008 and 2020 the permit record shows a near-continuous program — the addition, a finished third floor with its own bath, zoned air conditioning, a remodeled kitchen, fire alarm, rooftop solar — the years when the house served as the Chesley Road Bed & Breakfast and was kept to a standard its Victorian builders never imagined.

Source: City of Newton building-permit records; permit numbers and descriptions as indexed. Dates are permit dates, not completion dates.