880 Plaza

880 Plaza is a one-story concrete-block commercial block of twelve units on the northeast side of Boston Road (Route 3A) in Pinehurst, set well back from the road behind a parking lot, between Allandale Avenue and Pinedale Avenue. It was built in 1972 by the Billerica builders Kindred, Snyder & Co. and has held the Pinehurst Post Office since that year. Since 2024 it has belonged to the Billerica Islamic Center.

The land was part of the farm of Francis Carter, a Wilmington yeoman who bought a half interest in a 200-acre farm east of the county road to Burlington and a 29-acre lot west of it from John Parker in 1818, and in 1824 bought out the other half from Ruel Carter, with whom he had "owned together" the farm of 230 acres "on the great road leading from Billerica to Boston" (Billerica town book 13, pages 302 and 318). Francis Carter lived there until his death in May 1867; his estate inventory lists "Two hundred acres of Land with the Buildings thereon situated on the Easterly side of the Street" and a 29-acre "Barn lot" across the road. The farmhouse appears as "F. Carter" on the 1856 Walling map. His widow and three daughters held the farm until 1889, when the heirs sold "the Francis Carter place" to Henry Sheldon, James T. Eames and Kimball M. McLaughlin. In 1893 Sheldon and Eames sold the western 100 acres "and the dwelling house thereon" to Clara N. Wonson of Gloucester, who sold them in 1910 to Frank W. Coughlin of Brookline. Coughlin laid the tract out as the house lots of Pinehurst Manor (Plan Book 27, Plan 95, 1910), part of the new Pinehurst neighborhood.

Lot 1 of Pinehurst Manor, the 123,277-square-foot lot on Boston Road with the old Carter house, was sold in April 1911 to Joseph F. Carr and his wife Florence of East Boston. The Carr family kept it for more than fifty years; the house is marked "Joseph F. Carr" on the 1916 county plan of Boston Road. After the deaths of Joseph and Florence Carr and of their son Joseph F. Carr Jr., the heirs released the lot in 1967, and in April 1968 the 80,336 square feet fronting 334.65 feet on Boston Road were sold to Content Homes, Inc., a Billerica building company headed by the builder and real estate broker William F. Kindred. Content Homes divided the frontage into Lot A and Lot B in October 1970 (Plan Book 111, Plan 168), and in April 1972 sold Lot B, 53,200 square feet, to Kindred, Snyder & Co., Kindred's building partnership, which also traded as Makin Trust. The old house was taken down about 1971.

Kindred, Snyder & Co. had also bought, in February 1972, the registered corner lot at Pinedale Avenue next door (the former Pinedale Park lots of Savage-Quinn, Inc., registered by the Land Court in 1967), and the firm's office was at 884 Boston Road. The new block was built on Lot B in 1972; on December 14, 1972 the firm leased 618 square feet of it to the United States Postal Service for the Pinehurst Post Office, with "joint use of shopping center parking area", for a term beginning November 1, 1972. In 1977 the Board of Appeals allowed the two properties to be redivided, because "the petitioners constructed the building set forth on Lot B and Lot C-1. In doing so they went over the property line. This was done so they could construct an attractive modern style building which would improve the area." The strip under the end of the block became Lot 2 on Land Court Plan 33003-B. In March 1980 the partnership deeded Lot B to Kindred, and in January 1981 he sold the block, with Lot 2, for $235,000 (Plan Book 133, Plan 27).

The building had no formal name in its deeds, which describe it simply as "two certain parcels of land, together with the buildings thereon". Its tenants and Kindred himself called it "880 Plaza": the William F. Kindred Real Estate office advertised at "880 Plaza, Route 3A, 880 Boston Road, Pinehurst" in 1976, and the Billerica Federation of Teachers, Local 1677, gave "880 Plaza, Boston Road" as its address from 1979 to 1985. A 1998 Board of Appeals decision on the pylon sign called it "the plaza", whose sign had long read "880 Boston Road", with a panel for BayBank, by then BankBoston. The 1981 owner kept the plaza until 2005, when it was sold for $850,000 to Four Future Realty Trust, a Billerica trust. In November 2024 the trust sold it for $2,000,000 to the Billerica Islamic Center, a nonprofit that already occupied Unit 3.

Besides the post office, early tenants included Beverage Discount Centers (1972), the Village Beauty Shoppe, Long Auto School, BAPI Services Co. and Kindred's real estate office (all 1976), and the teachers' union local. A BayBank branch, later BankBoston and then Bank of America, used the sign for many years. M & B Shuttle received a permit for a shuttle service there in 2000. The personal property tax books from 2003 on list a long run of small businesses: One Stop Clothing Care (2003 to 2020), the Billerica Animal Clinic (2003 to 2015), Salon de Von and Mary's Doll House (2003 to 2011), Realty World Advantage (2008 to 2018), Carousel Cuts (from 2009), Prince Barber Shop (2013 to 2020), Lambresa Rose Law (2018 to 2023) and Indian Style Cuisine (from 2023), the Indian restaurant allowed by a 2016 special permit, along with nail salons, mortgage brokers, contractors, a fabric shop, a bakery, a consignment shop and small offices.

References

1. Middlesex probate 28894, Francis Carter of Billerica, 1867: administration and inventory of the 200-acre farm
2. Billerica assessor, 880 Boston Rd (parcel 99-398-1): 1.331 acres, 12-unit concrete-block commercial block built about 1972, Plan 133-27 Lot B; tenants listed

Title References Expand all

Recorded is Book/Page at the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds unless noted; Probate # is a Middlesex probate case, Ctf a Land Court certificate of title.