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FORM B BUILDING
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION
MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD
BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Photograph
View from NW.
Locus Map (north at top)
Source: Mass GIS Oliver Parcel Viewer.
Recorded by: Kathryn Grover & Neil Larson
Organization: Brewster Historical Commission
Date (month / year): June 2018
Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number
126-63 Harwich BRE.468
Town/City: Brewster
Place:(neighborhood or village):
East Brewster
Address:3736 Main Street
Historic Name: Norman R. & Lila Baker House
Uses:Present: single-family residence
Original: single-family residence
Date of Construction: ca. 1925
Source:deeds, historic atlases, vital records
Style/Form: Craftsman
Architect/Builder: unknown
Exterior Material:
Foundation: stone
Wall/Trim: wood shingles
Roof:asphalt shingles
Outbuildings/Secondary Structures:
none
Major Alterations (with dates):
Wing added to rear, late 20th century
Porch enclosed, late 20th century
Condition:good
Moved: no yes Date:
Acreage:0.55 acre
Setting: The house is situated in a dense residential area
characterized by summer cottages and retirement homes
built in the mid-20th century.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 3736 MAIN STREET
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 1
BRE.468
Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.
If checked, you must attach a completed National Register Criteria Statement form.
ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION:
The one-story, gable-roof Craftsman bungalow has the characteristics of a catalog or prefabricated house, a popular and
inexpensive alternative to custom-built homes particularly in the period between the world wars. Some were built for summer
residents, although more were owned by the Cape’s native population. The house has its entrance front on a deep porch
rimmed by knee walls (the open sections now enclosed with windows) tucked under the house roof and shed dormers front and
back creating a useable second story, both common features of Bungalow design. The roof overhangs the walls with deep
eaves and exposed rafter tails typical of the style. The west gable end has numerous windows in an asymmetrical arrangement.
A smaller wing of similar proportions is attached to the east end. This traditional farm kitchen wing is an unusual feature for the
type indicating its rural setting. A wing has been added on the rear, and a small workshop or studio is located in the driveway
east of the house.
The parcel is fully landscaped with the house sited close to the highway. A driveway enters the east side of the frontage and
extends to the rear of the house.
HISTORICAL NARRATIVE:
None of the deeds for the house and lot numbered 3736 Main Street mention buildings, but it seems likely that a house was built
on the lot by about 1925, when Norman Reed Baker of South Yarmouth married Lila May Eldredge of Brewster. The property
was deeded to the couple in June 1930 by Lila’s mother Grace and her second husband Abner L. Eldredge, also Lila’s uncle.1
Baker, born in 1906, was the son of Joseph Leonard and Elizabeth Owens Baker, and by 1920 his father had died; he and his
brother Foster and his mother lived in the home of Yarmouth laborer Watson Cahoon, for whom Elizabeth Baker worked as a
housekeeper. Norman Baker was a 19-year-old farmer when he married, and the house was built on land his wife’s family had
owned in East Brewster since the 1870s. The 1929 Cape Cod directory lists Baker as a farm hand living on Main Street in East
Brewster, and the 1930 census lists him, his wife Lila, and their young sons Stanley and Earl on this part of Main Street. Baker
then was a picker at a duck farm, probably at Mayo’s Duck Farm in East Orleans; Lila Eldredge Baker’s brother Walter Stanley
Eldredge also probably worked there.
By 1940 Norman Baker was a caretaker at a private camp, and he and his wife had four more children—Robert, Richard,
Lorraine, and Roland. The Bakers owned 3736 Main Street until 1972, when they sold it to Russell Bates Frizzell of Los Angeles,
who owned it for more than two decades. Frizzell was born in Rutherford, New Jersey, in 1918, graduated from Rutgers, the
State University of New Jersey, in 1938, and served as a captain in the Army during World War II. He died in Brewster in
November 1987, and in 1997 his heirs sold 3736 Main Street to Joseph M. and Dianne M. Paolucci of La Grangeville, New
York.2 In 2910 Joseph Paolucci, then living in Florida, sold the property to Kenneth J. and Paula R. David, who placed 3736
Main Street in trust in 2015.3
1 Abner L. and Grace E. Eldridge to Norman R. and Lila Baker, 20 June 1930, BCD 477:75
2 Norman R. and Lila Baker to Russell B. Frizzell, Los Angeles CA, 30 June 1972, BCD 1680:159; Andreee Luginbuhl, Agawam; Harold S. Corey, Fiskdale;
Virginia Correy Tobin, Rockville MD; and Mildred Corey McGuire, Elizabethton TN, to Joseph M. and Dianne M. Paolucci, La Grangeville NY, 3 February 1997,
BCD 10662:110.
3 Joseph M. Paolucci, Briny Breezes FL, to Kenneth J. and Paula R. David, Worcester, 15 December 2010, BCD 25097:2; Kenneth J. and Paula R. David to
Kenneth J. and Paula R. David, trustees, David Realty Trust, 2 March 2015, BCD 28741:154.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 3736 MAIN STREET
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 2
BRE.468
BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES
American Ancestors.org. Massachusetts vital, tax, and probate records.
Ancestry.com. Federal and state censuses, vital records, historic maps, and “Valuation List of the Town of Brewster 1890.”
Barnstable Patriot Digital Newspaper Archive. Sturgis Library website,
http://digital.olivesoftware.com/Olive/APA/Sturgis/default.aspx#panel=home.
Brewster Assessors’ Records, Brewster Town Clerk Archives and 1926 Town Report.
Deyo, Simeon L. History of Barnstable County, Mass. New York: H. W. Blake Co., 1890.
Freeman, Frederick. The History of Cape Cod: The Annals of Barnstable County. Boston: George C. Rand and Avery, 1858-62.
Otis, Amos. Genealogical Notes on Barnstable Families. 2 vols. Barnstable, MA: Patriot Press, 1888.
Sears, Henry J. Brewster Ship Masters. Yarmouthport, MA: C. W. Swift, 1906.
Simpkins, John. “Topographical Description of Brewster.” Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society 10 (1809): 72-79.
MAPS
Walling. Henry Francis. Map of the Counties of Barnstable, Dukes & Nantucket, Massachusetts. Boston: 1858.
Atlas of Barnstable County, Massachusetts. Boston: George H. Walker & Co., 1880.
Atlas of Barnstable County Massachusetts. Boston: Walker Lithograph & Publishing Co., 1910.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET BREWSTER 3736 MAIN STREET
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 3
BRE.468
PHOTOGRAPHS (credit Neil Larson, 2018)
View from NE.
View from north.