Let There Be Light in Turning Mill!

Welcome in spring with this natural-light-filled midcentury-modern in the coveted Turning Mill neighborhood, close to Estabrook School, and with bonded membership in the Paint Rock Neighborhood Swimming Pool! Originally designed by pioneering architect Walter Pierce, this Peacock Farm style plan has stood the test of time. Set on a large but low-maintenance lot with plantings that are currently in full bloom, the wooded setting offers a welcoming sense of calm. The soaring ceilings that are a hallmark of the design. The main level sports the open plan and indoor-outdoor symbiosis that enthusiasts of the style have come to expect, with light let in by oversized windows, with clerestories in the living room, and more light spilling through skylights. Most of the original windows have been replaced with insulated glass. The post-and-beam construction allows more flexibility to remove walls for even more openness, if desired. The kitchen was updated with quartz counters, new cabinets, and updated appliances. Three bedrooms, including a primary suite with a half bath. A full bath has also been updated. There’s also a separate office and a family room on the walk-out lower level. Big windows and a glass door open to a level back lawn. There’s a deck to relax with drinks. A two-car garage and a backup propane generator top this off as the best value in the beautiful town of Lexington!

Please email offers as a single PDF to [email protected]. Offers shall be reviewed 10:00 AM Tuesday, May 27

The Turning Mill Neighborhood

Please check out the information on the Turning Mill Conservation District.

Residents love the area due to its proximity to the highly desirable 2015-built Estabrook School (adjacent — many kids walk or bike) and because it offers membership in the country-club-like Paint Rock swimming pool, which was improved and updated in 2012. It also borders the vast Paint Mine conservation area, with beautiful walking trails. The Lexpress bus runs through. And a quick zip takes you down backroads to Whole Foods, Super Stop & Shop, Marshall’s, and so on in Bedford, or back the other way into the center of Lexington. And it is not far from Route 128.

Below is the swimming pool from summer 2012:

The land for the Turning Mill neighborhood was purchased by the Techbuilt Corporation. There were three model homes.  The first one built was 4 Turning Mill. Most people in Lexington know the area as Turning Mill, but it started out being referred to as Middle Ridge. Though it is now a large area of eight or nine streets, it started around Turning Mill Road and Demar Road, with Techbuilt houses designed by Carl Koch, before growing further north and west and incorporating other modern designs, most notably, the Peacock Farm-style house plan designed by Walter Pierce, who along with Danforth Compton founded Lexington’s Peacock Farm neighborhood on the other side of town. This design was licensed out to other developers, as was the case here in Turning Mill. There have also been some Deck Houses and custom homes built. The expanded part of the area is now referred to as “Upper Turning Mill.” There are now Facebook and neighborhood web pages for Turning Mill.

Research in part via Lexington Historic Survey, which notes:

Of the 95 homes in Middle Ridge, thirty-five are prefabricated “Techbuilt” homes.

Middle Ridge was originally conceived and designed in 1955 by architect Carl Koch as a neighborhood of “Techbuilt” homes. After receiving his architectural training at Harvard under Bauhaus founder, Walter Gropius, Koch taught architecture at MIT and created the first planned community of modern houses in the region at Snake Hill Road in Belmont in 1941. Prior to building in Lexington, he also designed and constructed Conantum, Concord’s first residential housing development (1951) and Kendal Common in Weston (1950). First introduced in 1953, the Techbuilt house was a low-cost, semi-factory-built modern style house which used modular construction.