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98 South Willard Street circa 1832   By Eric L. Martin

This structure, originally a one-story, brick veneer building, has undergone significant changes since it construction around 1832. In 1848 John Peck, the first recorded owner, sold the property to David D. Fletcher, who sold it to Frederick Radley at some point after 1853; Radley conveyed it to William and Emma Brough in 1865 (1).

Starting in 1870 the house was owned by three generations of the Turk family (2). Bennett Turk, who had built his home in 1865 at 368 College Street and was proprietor of B. Turk & Bro., a men's clothing store in Burlington, purchased the property, which was adjacent to his homestead; in subsequent land records this house was referred to as "the Cottage premises" (3). The pedimented entrance hood was added around 1890, and in 1894 Turk enlarged the structure by adding a second floor (4). The house was rented out during his period of ownership, and by 1906 a frame addition extended along the entire rear elevation of the structure (5). Title to the property passed to Louis H. Turk in 1910 and to Marie Louise Turk in 1919, by which time a second story had been added to the southern half of the frame addition (6). In 1922 Joseph Turk, Bennett Turk's son, sold the family home at 368 College Street and moved the family into this building. By 1926 the two bay, two story frame addition to the north had been built, and in 1928 Dr. Yvonne Marion Turk, granddaughter of Bennett Turk, took title of the property (7). Dr. Turk and the property owner to the south, W. Curtis Johnson, Jr., executed an easement in 1937 to provide adequate motor vehicle access to the garage behind the house (8). In 1935 Dr. Turk had relocated the office of her medical practice here, and she was joined by another physician, Dr. Badona L. Levinson in 1943; both lived and worked in the building until the death of Dr. Turk, whose estate conveyed the property to Dr. Levinson in 1972 (9).

Dr. Levinson, who began renting out the units vacated by Dr. Turk's death, kept her residence and office here until 1989; she sold the property to Daniel C. Pryor in 1990 for $195,000 (10). Nine years later the current owners, Shawn M. & Bethany L. Bedard, purchased the property for $240,000 (11).