462-468 Central Street

Picture of house on 462-468 Central Street

  • Historic Name: Wheelock Real Estate Office
  • Uses: Office building and tenement
  • Date of Construction: Circa 1879
  • Style/Form: Italianate
  • Architect/Builder: Unknown
  • Foundation: Granite
  • Wall/Trim: Brick with wood frame extension across the back elevation
  • Roof: Flat
  • Major Alterations: After 2017 the entire brick façade was painted white
  • Condition: Good
  • Included in Hengen survey? No
  • Related oral interview? No
  • Portuguese owned? Yes
  • Recorded by: Gregory Gray Fitzsimons and Marie Frank
  • Organization: UMass Lowell
  • Date: July 2023

Description

This three-story Romanesque Italianate brick office and tenement structure has three entrances on the ground floor with one double sash window between #462-4 and one large rectangular window with side and fan lights between #464-8. The lintels of the entrances and double sash are curved molded brick. The second and third stories each have five window bays with curved lintels; the central bays consist of paired lancet windows with blind arches on the second story and full arches on the third. There are corbels under the eave across the front façade. The south elevation is five bays deep with windows on each story; a clapboarded wood frame extension runs across the back facade. The brick façades were painted white c. 2017.

Historic photo for 462-468 Central Street
City Engineers Collection #0045.0G, Center for Lowell History.

History

This building was owned by and housed the offices of Andrew C. Wheelock, real estate and tenement entrepreneur who owned multiple properties in Back Central. The office, located in #468, can be seen in the City Engineer photo #0045.0G (included here although it labels the structure #472). According to the article for the auction of the building in 1929, in addition to the office, the building included four apartments of four rooms and one apartment with five. Wheelock died in 1911 and his widow, Margaret Wheelock Merrill, inherited his estate. The earliest map/atlas to include the building is 1879. It was built of brick with a free-standing gabled wooden structure located behind it. In the 1882 atlas both buildings are described as tenements and the alley on the south side, labelled Lincoln Place, opened onto a court of additional tenements. Thus, by this date the triangle of space created between Central and Charles was heavily populated. The 1892 atlas includes the notation that the building now contained 3 offices. The only change on the 1906 atlas is the addition of a small wooden entry at the door of #468. This is visible in the City Engineer photo included here; also by 1916, a wooden extension was added to the rear elevation. After the 1929 auction the property went through a series of owners although the 1952 still indicates tenement use. The free-standing wood frame structure behind the building is no longer extant.

Residents of the tenements included Polish, Portuguese, and Irish; Mrs. Cecilia Sheldon’s son, Grant Gordon, was killed in action in 1918. Portuguese resident, Joseph Silva, married a Polish woman, Mary Panus, in 1940. By 1976 Antonio Ribeiro owned the building; he sold it in 2007 to a Realty Trust; in 2022 it was purchased by JMMSI LLC.

Sources

  • Lowell atlases, 1879, 1882, 1892, 1906, 1924 & 1936.
  • Lowell city directories.
  • Lowell City Engineers Photograph Collection, Center for Lowell History.
  • Registry of Deeds.
  • Lowell Sun, August 3, 1918, p. 1.
  • Lowell Sun, Auction of Wheelock Estate, March 11, 1929.