Structure · Built 1928 · Demolished 1961
Billerica Diner
This page is about the building. For the business, see Billerica Diner.
Billerica Diner
| Address | 416 Boston Rd |
| Built | 1928 |
| Demolished | 1961 |
| Tenants | |
| Billerica Diner (1928 - 1961) | |
| Other Lot Structures | Luther W. Faulkner House (Built 1833) |
The Billerica Diner was a railroad-car style lunch car set in front of the Luther W. Faulkner House in Billerica Center, on the Boston Road side of the house lot at the corner of Andover Road, from about 1928 into the 1960s. The lot, Lot A of a 1916 plan of Richard Faulkner's land (Plan Book 32, Plan 28), was owned from 1918 by Harry and Anna Gertrude Waitz, who held it with the house into the 1970s; no lease of the diner site was recorded under their names, so the car was probably placed under an unrecorded lease or with their permission as personal property, as other Billerica diners were.
The diner opened as the Ideal Diner, "home cooking a specialty", advertised in The Torch in 1928 and 1929 as at "Billerica Square". Alonzo S. Matherson (or Mathison) and William V. Holmes ran it, as the Ideal Diner in the 1931 directory and as the Billerica Diner by 1941; Holmes alone kept it at 416 Boston Road in 1957. Its last advertisement is in the 1961 Warrior yearbook, and the car was taken away in the 1960s. The footprint shown is an approximate placement on the lot.
Deed References
| Date | Type | Grantor | Grantee | Summary | Recorded |
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| July 25, 1916 | Warranty Deed | Richard Faulkner of Billerica, unmarried | Michael H. McElligott and Thomas F. McElligott of Billerica | 1916: Richard Faulkner plan of the corner lots (Plan Book 32, Plan 28), on which the diner later stood | 557/574 |
Dated July 25, 1916. Lot 1 on Plan Book 32 Plan 28, on the east side of Boston Road north of T. F. Lyons: 40 ft on the road, 125 ft to the passageway, 35.25 ft on it, 127.40 ft by Lyons; the passageway subject to the Lyons pole rights (Book 519 Page 424). The last road-front piece of the homestead.
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| August 30, 1918 | Quitclaim Deed | Samuel Jacobs and Celia Jacobs, his wife, of Concord | Harry Waitz and Anna Gertrude Waitz, his wife, of Billerica | 1918: Lot A, the Faulkner House lot where the diner was set, to Harry and Anna Gertrude Waitz | 592/93 |
Dated Aug. 28, 1918. Lot A on Plan Book 32 Plan 28 "with the buildings thereon" (same bounds, about 6,350 sq ft), subject to the sidewalk rights and to the taxes for 1915-1917. Harry Waitz kept his tailor shop in the house for decades.
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| April 13, 1970 | Quitclaim Deed | Harry Waitz and Anna Gertrude Waitz, his wife | Harry Waitz and Gertrude A. Waitz, as tenants by the entirety | 1968-70: the Waitzes put Lots A and B in tenancy by the entirety | 1918/33 |
Acknowledged June 14, 1968; recorded April 13, 1970 under the heading "2 Andover Road". Lots A and B on Plan Book 32 Plan 28 with the passageway, $1 and no stamps. Later the property passed to family trusts (1973, Book 2066 Page 543; 1978, Book 2304 Page 78), and in February 2000 from the Waitz family to private owners (Book 10686 Page 53).
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Recorded is Book/Page at the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds unless noted.