W. B. Stearns House

The W. B. Stearns House stood at 29 Andover Road in Billerica Centre, on the southeasterly side of the road a short walk east of the Common. It was a two-and-a-half-story shingled Victorian house of about 1898, gable end to the street, with a wraparound front porch, a center chimney, wings and an ell, set high on a fieldstone foundation about fifteen feet back from the road. The Historical Commission credited the design to Ralph Messer, who kept the Country Store opposite the Common, and noted that it was one of three houses built on the same plan, with the E. N. Ray House and the Douglas E. Turner House. It stood in the Billerica Centre local historic district from 1990 until it was destroyed by fire on January 21, 2019.

The land was once part of the Bowers homestead. In 1834 the heirs of Andrew Bowers sold it to Jonathan Gates, who sold it the same year to Ichabod G. Kimball, together with thirty acres "on the east side of the road opposite" his house. In 1875 Kimball, by then elderly, covenanted to "stand seized of my homestead farm" for George W. Searles, who was to farm it and support Kimball and his wife Joanna for the rest of their lives; the deed was recorded in March 1880, just after Kimball's death, and Searles took the farm, including twenty-eight acres across the road.

On May 23, 1890 Searles sold a half acre on Andover Street, between John H. Baker's land and his own, to Olivia A. Stearns, "wife of William B. Stearns", for $500. The deed names no buildings, and the house was put up on the bare lot in the 1890s; it appears on the town map of 1898. Olivia Stearns died about 1901, and her will was proved in the Middlesex Probate Court on December 27, 1901. On July 19, 1902 her residuary legatees, William B. Stearns of Billerica and William A. Stearns of Lowell, sold "a certain parcel of land with the buildings thereon situated in Billerica Centre", one half acre, to Bessie A. Messer for $3,250. The deed was not recorded until 1909, and Mrs. Messer later wrote that her title came "in part under the will of said Olivia A. Stearns" and in part by that deed.

Bessie A. Messer, wife of Truman G. Messer, added the land behind the house in 1909, when George W. Searles sold her ten acres running back from the end of her lot to the town land, with forty-five feet on Andover Street, "a part of the premises" Kimball had settled on him. The house and the ten acres stayed together in the Messer family for almost sixty years. In April 1946 Bessie and Truman Messer conveyed both parcels to Ralph W. Messer and his wife Louise B. Messer, and in December 1960 Ralph deeded his share to Louise.

On October 21, 1968 Louise B. Messer, then a widow, sold "the land in Billerica, with the buildings thereon, now numbered 29 Andover Road", with the ten acres, to Romolo E. Capobianco, Inc. The company laid out the back land as Pollard Estates in 1969 to 1971, with a new street, Cider Mill Way, and three lots; the old house stood on Lot 1 at the corner of the new street. Romolo E. Capobianco lived in the house and ran his company from it for half a century, and in 2017 the corporation deeded Lot 1 to him personally. On the evening of January 21, 2019, with the temperature near two degrees and the hydrants frozen, the house burned to the ground, and Mr. Capobianco, 78, died in the fire.

In 2020 the lot was divided into two house lots, and in March 2021 the personal representatives of his estate sold it to George Allen & Son Construction, Inc. for $425,000. The builder cleared the site and put up two new houses that year, one at 29 Andover Road and one at 3 Cider Mill Way, both since sold to private owners.

References

1. MACRIS BIL.40
2. Billerica assessor record, parcel 51-72-1 (29 Andover Rd, Lot 1-B), sales history back to 1979

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.