The imminent sale of a historic home on a nearly half-acre lot at 19 Linden St. has raised concerns among neighbors that it could be torn down and replaced with a large multi-unit development.
Rebecca Moroski, Brookline’s senior preservation planner, said she has received several calls from interested buyers asking about the town’s rules for demolition and preservation.
The well-preserved Greek Revival-style home is on the market for $5.95 million. The listing frames the house as “a unique opportunity for investors, developers, and owner-occupants to build or invest in their dream home.”
The sale of 19 Linden St. would follow the sale of nearby 40 Webster Place and 40 Kent St., which will be turned into apartments. The Preservation Commission found both houses historically significant and recommended revising development plans to support historic preservation.
Under the revised plans, 40 Webster Place will be demolished to make way for a five-story apartment building, and 40 Kent St. will be restored and turned into a multi-unit building. In a January letter to the Brookline Zoning Board of Appeals , the Preservation Commission wrote that it supported the restoration and found the historical documentation provided as mitigation for the demolition of 40 Webster Place satisfactory.
Many homes in the Brookline Village area date to the 1800s. According to the Preservation Commission’s walking tour , “the Lindens area is the earliest planned development in Brookline.” The house at 19 Linden St. was built in 1843 by John Turner, a partner in a Boston dry goods firm.
Adding to the home’s history are its former owners, Phyllis and Steven Trefonides, who bought the house for $48,500 in 1976, according to public records.
Steven Trefonides was a painter and photographer who contributed significantly to Boston’s art scene. “His Brookline home was a museum of his work, filled with canvases, drawings, and photographs,” according to his obituary in The Boston Globe in 2021.
Phyllis Trefonides was a clinical psychiatric social worker who liked collecting antiques, gardening and lending her creative eye to give feedback on her husband’s artwork, according to her obituary . She died last December.
Virginia Smith of 12 Linden St. said that the couple were friendly figures in the neighborhood. She said she would often see Steven working in his studio through the front window, and he once gave her a piece of his art as a thank-you for shoveling snow.
“Phyllis used to sit out there [on the porch] in a chair and just greet people,” Smith said.
Smith, who owns a historical home herself and is a Town Meeting Member for the 6th precinct, said she is concerned about the architectural and historical preservation of 19 Linden St.
“We just have few protections because although this should be a local historic district, it’s not,” Smith said. “So we have to go through such hoops to try to save our houses.”
The listing agent, Scott Goldsmith of Gibson Sotheby’s International Realty, declined to speak with Brookline.News, and said the current property owners, the children of Steven and Phyllis Trefonides, did not want to speak with reporters.
Although the property is not in a local historic district, 19 Linden St. would likely be subject to an 18-month demolition delay given its listing on the National Register of Historic Places , Moroski said. The delay aims to incentivize owners to work with the Preservation Commission to develop “adaptive reuse strategies” rather than full demolition, she said.
“We love to see people come in for alterations or additions to keep as much of the historic property as possible,” Moroski said.
In an increasingly pricey housing market, homes for sale across Brookline are often only affordable for wealthy buyers or developers. Meanwhile, the total available inventory of units in the town has dropped dramatically, according to the 2024 Brookline Housing Plan .
Amanda Zimmerman, a Select Board member and co-founder of the pro-housing group Brookline for Everyone , said her hope for the 19 Linden St. property is that it is not just one home given its size.
“Our world is always changing, and it is a bit naive to think that we can avoid the change,” Zimmerman said. “If we reframe the concern to say, ‘Change is going to happen. How might you best influence it?’ it’s a much more constructive conversation.”
John Bassett, a Town Meeting member for the 6th precinct and former builder, said there are ways to preserve the history and architecture of a home while still increasing housing units. Bassett saw this play out firsthand next to his home.
“Eleven and 12 Goodwin Place is an example of an enlargement that, I guess, made money for the developer and architecturally fits in pretty well in the neighborhood,” Bassett said.
The multi-family home at 11 and 12 Goodwin Place, built in 1880, was sold in 2022 for $3.07 million. The building has been transformed into four townhomes, which are now on the market starting at over $2 million each.
“I would say to folks that are really concerned about [development], try to keep an open mind,” Moroski said. “Housing stock is limited, and we just want to see folks do good projects with what we have available.”