United States Department of the Interior
National Park Service
National Register of Historic
Places
Continuation Sheet
Section Number 7
28 South Williams St., 1924.
The 2 1/2 story Colonial Revival style house at 28 South Williams Street, constructed in 1924 with a modern addition to the rear, is currently used as doctorâs offices and apartments. The red stretcher-bond brick veneer building is supported by a concrete foundation that is raised two to three feet above the earth. The eaves front house is capped with a gable roof sheathed in asphalt shingles. Two large deciduous trees frame its symmetrical three bay front façade, one on either side of the sidewalk leading to the classically detailed one-story front porch.
Four concrete steps rise to the central bayâs nearly flat-roofed front porch, which has a plain entablature supported by six Tuscan columns, four in the front and two half-columns flanking the front entrance, and a wooden tongue-in-groove floor. The single-leaf door with a three-quarter-length window is flanked by three-quarter length single-pane sidelights.
All windows on the building are six-over-one double-hung sash. Their sills, made up entirely of brick headers, protrude slightly from the wall surface. The brick window lintels are in the form of flat splayed arches.
A pair of windows is located on the first floor in each of the bays flanking the front porch. The second story of the front façade has four single windows, the outer two centered above the paired windows below, and the inner two above the porch roof. Stretching from one chimney to the other, occupying the majority of the gable roof, is one continuous shed dormer. It is sheathed in horizontal aluminum siding and contains three windows; each is centered above its corresponding opening on the first floor. A ladder is attached under the central dormer window, providing an emergency exit to the porch roof between the inner two windows of the second floor.
The house is nearly as deep as it is wide. The right (south) and the left (north) gable ends of the building are reflections of each other. From front to back on the first floor there is a single window, the chimney, a single window, a pair of windows, and another single window. On the second story there is again a single window and the chimney, then a paired window centered below the gable peak, with a single window to the rear. The third floor has two shorter windows evenly spaced between the cornice returns.
Behind the main block of the house is a two-story shed roof addition clad in aluminum siding. A band of three windows stretches across the ends of the addition on both levels. The back facade of the building has been largely modified to accommodate the buildingâs new use. A wide ramp provides handicap access to the first floor through a rear entrance. External stairs rise to the second and third floor porches, all of which are constructed of pressure-treated dimensional lumber.
Originally constructed in 1924 for
Mary McGreevy, a widow, the building served as her home, as well housing
her daughter, also Mary McGreevy, and an additional renter. The first tenant
was Richard Cody, manager of the Burlington Ice Company. However occupants
changed regularly. The younger Mary McGreevy, a schoolteacher, owned and
lived in the house until 1966, renting apartments the entire time. In 1967
all units, including that of Ms. McGreevy, were vacant. In 1968 John R.
Fitzgerald, a physician and instructor of clinical medicine at UVM, bought
the building and introduced medical offices in to the building. There were
generally two practicing doctors and three apartments that were most commonly
rented to medical students. Dr. Fitzgerald stopped working in the building
in 1989; in 1990 only Timothy J Terrien M.D., who had been working in the
building since the 1970s, was the only professional listed in addition
to the rental apartments. Today the building continues to function as a
combination of medical offices, including the office of Dr. Terrien, and
rental apartments.