Uphill from downtown Burlington, South Willard Street between Pearl and Beech Streets was once the city's most fashionable address, and you're walking its historic district now. This was once Burlington’s most fashionable residential area, home in the 19th century to the major estates of the city’s business leaders. Willard Street itself was laid out in the early 19th century, roughly midway up the sloping terrain between Lake Champlain and the hilltop where the University of Vermont campus sits, and the district lies uphill from downtown Burlington.
In those early decades you would have seen widely spaced Federal and Greek Revival houses set on grand lots; by the third quarter of the 19th century successful businessmen added high-quality Italianate and Second Empire houses, at times subdividing the earlier estates. Over time the area was infilled with a variety of late 19th and early 20th century architecture, creating the architecturally heterogeneous streetscape you see today. The significance of this concentration of houses was recognized when the district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.
Notice the mix of Federal, Greek Revival, Italianate, and Second Empire buildings lining South Willard between Pearl and Beech Streets.