Jonathan Hildreth House

An important example of late Georgian architecture, the Jonathan Hildreth House was the focus for the first village developed outside of Concord Center. Hildreth, a lieutenant and provisioner for the Revolutionary Army, purchased a modest midcentury clapboard house and commissioned local builder-architect Reuben Duren to design a new principal residence and store (since demolished). For Hildreth, Duren provided a brick facaded double-pile, two-story block facing Barrett's Mill Road. The quality of the design can be seen in details such as the pilastered and pedimented entrance and handsome stair hall, both influenced by English pattern books such as Batty Langley's The Builder's Jewel (1741, 1769). In 1922, architect Andrew H. Hepburn purchased the property as his residence. The following year he became a partner in Perry, Shaw and Hepburn, a firm best known for its restoration work at Colonial Willimsburg, Virginia, during the 1920s and 1930s. In 1941, Hepburn added one bay to the north end of the half house and a two-story wing to the west. He copied the details of Duren's woodwork for this sensitive addition. Surrounding the intersection of Lowell and Barrett's Mill roads is a fine collection of extended farmhouses and barns from the nineteenth century.