Garden Acres

Garden Acres is a neighborhood at the southeast edge of Billerica on the Burlington line, around Shelburne Avenue, Irene Avenue, Connolly Road and Cook Road. In June 1913 W. H. Spear, surveyor, of Lynn drew the "Plan of Garden Acres in the Towns of Burlington and Billerica, Mass., owned by M. R. Connolly," recorded on August 6, 1913 (Plan Book 30, Plan 99). It laid out long, narrow house lots, most of them 25 feet wide, on Burns and Newhall Streets and Shelburn and Irene Avenues running north from Cook Road on the Billerica side, and on Carter Road, Olney, Greenleaf, Morris, Whitney, Stewart and Martin Streets and others, much of it in Burlington. Land of Coughlin, Chase, Taylor, Alexander, Holden and Mallaguti bounded it.

In July 1915 M. R. Connolly had J. S. Crossman, civil engineer, of Boston draw "The Annex to Garden Acres in Billerica," developed by John Hinston of the Old South Building, Boston, and recorded on April 6, 1916 (Plan Book 33, Plan 48). It added Watson Street, Gould Street and Lewis Street off a widened Olney Street, west of Cook Road and Irene Avenue, on more of Connolly's land. Connolly Road, which runs through the first plan's blocks, carries the owner's name.

Houses went up along Connolly Road, Shelburne and Irene Avenues and Albert Street from the 1920s. The Annex streets, Olney, Watson and Gould and Greenleaf Street, were built only in 1982 to 1984. Glade Street, next to it, belongs to Frank W. Coughlin's Billerica Farms plan of 1913.