Plainfield, New Jersey · National Register of Historic Places, 1982
Thirty-eight houses. One remarkable street.
The Hillside Avenue Historic District runs 27 acres between Watchung and Martine, holding some of the finest turn-of-the-century architecture in Union County. We are the neighbors who look after it.
38
Homes in the district
34
Contributing structures
27
Acres
1982
National Register listing
Thirty-eight contributing houses line Hillside Avenue and its neighbors, most built between 1900 and 1925. Take a visual walk through the district below, then explore the complete directory of every home — with dates and descriptions from the 1982 National Register nomination.
Browse by block
The complete house directory
Every contributing home, block by block, with a then (1977 survey) and now placeholder pair. Facts drawn from the 1982 National Register nomination (John A. Grady & Yasmina King, Plainfield Heritage, Inc.).
Hillside Avenue — the 900s
901 Hillside Avenue
A 1½-story cottage, three bays wide, with a gable roof and a fine arched window on the facade.
907 Hillside Avenue
A gold-painted shingle house, identical to 915 but set differently to the street; both feature leaded-glass windows.
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915 Hillside Avenue
A white-painted shingle house with a gambrel roof, 2½ stories and two bays, with drop pendants and brackets on the second-floor overhang.
920 Hillside Avenue
A four-bay Colonial Revival in gray-painted wood shingle with paneled front doors. Originally one house with 930; the owner went bankrupt and it was divided.
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921 Hillside Avenue
A white-painted clapboard house, four bays and 2½ stories, with a gable roof and delicate iron tracery around the front door.
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922 Hillside Avenue
A 2½-story stucco house set sideways to the street, with a hip roof, a porte-cochère with a pediment fanlight, and a handsome arched window.
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925 Hillside Avenue
A 2½-story, three-bay stucco house with window surrounds of brick set on end and a wrought-iron fence with double gates on Lake Street.
930 Hillside Avenue
A 2½-story, five-bay home in white wood shingle with a leaded-glass fanlight and sidelights and a white picket fence. Originally one house with 920.
937 Hillside Avenue
One of the district's early houses, predating the Colonial Revival majority, in the Second Empire style.
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943 Hillside Avenue
Two stories plus a mansard roof, three bays, the gable end facing the street so its curve counterpoints the mansard. Paired eave brackets; an old stone wall on Lake Street.
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950 Hillside Avenue
Two stories plus a mansard roof, three bays, with wooden gates flanking the drive, a Colonial Revival entrance, and a large carriage house and gardens behind.
955 Hillside Avenue
A white wood-shingle house, 2½ stories, five bays plus two-story wings, with a doorway of four Ionic pilasters and a broken pediment topped by a twisted-pineapple finial. Its coach house survives at 1321 Highland.
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963 Hillside Avenue
A 2½-story, three-bay house in natural wood shingle with a gambrel roof and a fanlighted entrance in a rustic stone surround.
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966 Hillside Avenue
A transitional Shingle/Colonial Revival, 2½ stories and five bays, with a natural-shingle carriage house carrying a Chippendale roofline railing and a brick-terraced arbor.
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970 Hillside Avenue
A three-bay, 2½-story shingle house with a gambrel roof and fine paneled double front doors, built about 1897.
975 Hillside Avenue
Built for Frank Vail by J.C. Manning for $5,000; a natural wood-shingle house with a gambrel roof, a small Palladian window, and copper beeches. Alterations in 1918 and 1926 gave it a transitional look.
Hillside Avenue — the 1000s
980 Hillside Avenue
Built by steel magnate William Garrigues: 2½-story brick, seven bays, with a portico of four fluted Ionic columns, a leaded-glass fanlight, a wrought-iron balcony, and a brick car barn behind.
996 Hillside Avenue
Built for the Wallace family: a painted wood-shingle Colonial Revival, 2½ stories and five bays with two-story wings and a gambrel roof, with a lion's-head door knocker.
999 Hillside Avenue
Built for William A. Conner for $12,000 — a white, five-bay, line-for-line copy of the Longfellow House in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with Ionic pilasters and matching lawn balustrades.
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1000 Hillside Avenue
Built for the Lawrence family in brick, with four end-wall chimneys, a tiled gambrel roof, a carved pineapple over the door, and a cast-iron horse's-head hitching post still at the curb.
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1009 Hillside Avenue
Built for Evarts Tracy by William Pangborn; a stucco house set sideways to the street, 2½ stories and four bays with a hip roof — a period design faintly recalling the Spanish Revival.
1020 Hillside Avenue
Built for H.L. Harrison by the James Baird Company; a 2½-story, five-bay Colonial Revival with porch wings, a slate gambrel roof, and formal gardens with brick walks.
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1025 Hillside Avenue
A mid-century ranch of brick and clapboard; a fine old copper beech highlights the property.
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1035 Hillside Avenue
A shingle-style Colonial Revival with a clipped gable roof; aluminum-sided in 1979, it keeps a Chippendale porch railing with urn finials.
1040 Hillside Avenue
A two-story stucco Mission-style home with a green-tile hip roof and a terra-cotta medallion over the entrance flanked by ceramic tiles, echoed on the rear gates.
1045 Hillside Avenue
A 2½-story Colonial Revival in painted wood shingle, five bays, imposingly placed on a rise, with a columned veranda wrapping two sides and a leaded-glass window beside the entrance.
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1046 Hillside Avenue
A five-bay, 2½-story stucco-on-masonry Mission-style house with a gable roof and a front door of fifteen beveled-glass panes.
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1055 Hillside Avenue
A 1½-story, four-bay ranch of brick and painted wood shingle.
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1060 Hillside Avenue
Built by the Townsley Brothers; a 2½-story, three-bay masonry Mission-style house with a walled open front terrace.
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1069 Hillside Avenue
A 2½-story, three-bay house with a stone-block first floor and composition-shingle second, a wide deep porch, and a 1½-story garage behind.
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1070 Hillside Avenue
A painted wood-shingle house, 2½ stories and three bays, on a stone-block foundation, with six leaded-glass windows on the right side.
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1077 Hillside Avenue
A 2½-story, three-bay white-clapboard Colonial Revival with a two-story wing and a wood-shingle roof.
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1088 Hillside Avenue
A three-bay, 2½-story Colonial Revival in wood shingle with a one-story enclosed porch on the left.
Watchung Avenue
1234 Watchung Avenue
A three-bay, 2½-story stucco house with one-story extensions on either side and a tile-covered gable roof.
1239 Watchung Avenue
A 2½-story, four-bay Shingle-style house with a hipped asphalt roof; the shingles have weathered to a natural sienna.
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1303 Watchung Avenue
Brick and shingle with a slate hip-and-gable roof, turned porch posts, star-motif eave brackets, and an oriel gable — the district's sole Queen Anne.
Prospect & Highland
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1300 Prospect Avenue
A 2½-story, five-bay Colonial Revival in painted wood shingle with a gambrel roof and an entrance of paired slender columns and a fanlighted door; fronts on Hillside.
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1321 Highland Avenue
Originally the coach house for Henry de Forest's 955 Hillside; a two-story stucco building with a gambrel roof at the end of a long drive — an excellent adaptive reuse.
HAHDA
Hillside Avenue Historic District Association
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