Jean B. LeLacheur House

The house and store at the southwest corner of High Street and Mellon Road in North Billerica was built about 1915 by Jean B. LeLacheur, a Lowell tailor, as the home of his family and of their neighborhood grocery, known in the directories as Le Lacheur's Market. It stands on lots 42 and 43 of Hillcrest, the house-lot development that George H. Hill of Winchester laid out in August 1911 on the fifteen acres he had bought that year from Antoinette W. Davis, part of the old John Kitchen farm. On the Hillcrest plans (Plan Book 29, Plan 58, of 1911, and the Talbot Addition plan, Plan Book 30, Plan 57, of 1913) Mellon Road was spelled Mellen Road, and the deeds kept that spelling into the 1990s.

On Nov. 6, 1913 Hill sold lot 43, the corner lot, 50 feet on High Street and 100 feet on Mellen Road, to "Jean B. Le Lacheur, of Lowell" for "One Dollar and other valuable considerations." The deed mentions no buildings, and it carried restrictions that ran until Jan. 1, 1920: buildings were to be set back at least 15 feet from High Street, and no dwelling costing less than $1,000 could be built. LeLacheur added the next 10 feet of lot 42 on Aug. 22, 1916 and the remaining 40 feet of it by a deed of Feb. 6, 1919, in which he is called "of Billerica," giving him a lot 100 feet square. These later deeds also barred the "three-decker."

The store was open by 1916, when the town paid "J. B. Le Lacheur, groceries" $37.44. The suburban directory of 1917 lists Jean B. Lelacheur on High Street, and in the same book McSweeney's Billerica and Lowell Express named "Le Lacheur's Groc. Store High St." as one of its Billerica call offices. The directory of 1919 lists "Le Lacheur's Market and Grocery High c Mellen rd" and "John B (Ella R) grocer also tailor (L) High c Mellen rd h do," that is, he kept the store, worked as a tailor in Lowell, and lived in the same building. His son Edward G. and a Willis Le Lacheur were clerks in the store, and his sons Arthur J., then in the Army, and Paul J., in the Navy, boarded there. The store appears as "Le Lacheur's Market" in 1921 and as "Le Lacheur's Market & Grocery" in 1925. A postcard of about 1915 shows the proprietors with the store's delivery vehicle, a Ford Model T depot hack, and calls the business LeLacheur's Provisions. The name is spelled Le Lacheur, LeLacheur, Lelacheur and LaLacheur in the records.

The store is not listed after 1925. In the town's jury lists from 1925 to 1933 LeLacheur appears as a tailor, and the directory of 1931 lists him as a tailor in Lowell with his home at "High cor Mellen rd." In 1928 the town graded High Street "from B. Kearney's to a point near Lelacheur's."

On Sept. 5, 1933 LeLacheur and his wife Ella sold "two certain lots of land with the buildings thereon" to Harry A. and Helen M. Atamian of Medford, subject to a $2,500 mortgage to the Lowell Institution for Savings, and took back a second mortgage of $2,000. Less than a year later, on Aug. 20, 1934, the Atamians deeded the property to the bank for less than $100, subject to the unpaid taxes, and LeLacheur discharged his mortgage. The 1932 tax of $144.50, assessed to LeLacheur, was still unpaid, and on Aug. 25, 1934 the town's collector bought the land for the town at a tax sale. The bank kept the property until March 18, 1941, when it sold it to Yvonne M. Dupont of Lowell. In January 1942 she traded it to Charles A. LeDuc of Lowell for a house on Pawtucket Street in Lowell, and on Jan. 23, 1942 LeDuc sold it to Norman E. Grattan of Chelmsford. Grattan and his wife Gladys C. Grattan put the title in both their names in 1949.

The Grattans owned the building for more than fifty years. After Norman E. Grattan's death his heirs sold lots 42 and 43 in February 1994 for $124,000 to private owners, and it has changed hands several times since. The assessors now list it as 128 High Street, a four-unit apartment house on 0.23 acres, and give its date as about 1900, which is too early: the lot was vacant when LeLacheur bought it in 1913.

References

1. Billerica assessor's record for 128 High St (parcel 10-123-2): Hillcrest lots 42 and 43, Plan 30-57
2. Lowell Suburban Directory, 1917: Jean B. Lelacheur, High St., and McSweeney's express ad naming "Le Lacheur's Groc. Store High St."

Deed References Expand all

Recorded is Book/Page at the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds unless noted.