Beverly Family Housing
Residential Reader newsletters
Base Boston maintains the Beverly family housing site consisting of 16 housing units. The housing units are roughly 1,200 sq. ft, 3 bedroom, 1 bath, ranch-style single family houses with carport and storage shed.
Our housing site is located on Laurel Street in Beverly, Massachusetts. This is just a short 1/2 miles walk down the street to the MBTA North Beverly train station. The train will get you to North Station in downtown Boston. North Station is about a 1/2 mile walk from Base Boston.
The North Beverly Train Station is part of the Newburyport/Rockport Commuter Rail line. Its address is Enon St. and Dodge St., Beverly, MA 01915.
Beverly housing does not provide washing machines or electric dryers although there are hook-ups for both. There are no air conditioners installed, either. Members may install their own window air conditioners with permission from the Local Housing Office.
If you would like to make changes on your property, we ask that you submit a Self-Help Form. Click on this link (Base Boston Self Help Form), fill out the form, and return to D01-SMB-LHO-BOSTON@uscg.mil. When approved, you may make the changes.
Living at Beverly is like living having your own home. It is your own home! This means you care for it as if it were your own. All tenants are required to maintain their yard with their own lawn mowers, rakes, and shovels. Nevertheless, they remain government property. This means that all tenants are subject to annual inspections by the Local Housing Office or at any other time the Base feels it's required. The Housing Office will make every attempt to coordinate a suitable time but reserves the right to enter the home when deemed necessary under 10 U.S.C. 2775 and 14 U.S.C. 93(e).
Click here for a PDF (5 mb) of additional Beverly Housing pictures
History of Beverly Housing
You are living in one of 16 ranch-style houses that were built by the U.S. Army in 1958 for soldiers working at the former Nike missile site in Beverly. Project Nike, named after the goddess of Greek mythology, was proposed by Bell Laboratories in 1944 to the War Department who demanded an air defense system to combat a new aerial threat to the United States. This new aerial threat was something called a “jet aircraft”. At the time, jet aircraft were too fast and flew too high for conventional ground-based weaponry and the United States needed to augment conventional artillery batteries while providing protection from aerial attack for strategic resources and population centers.
The first successful Nike test was conducted in November 1951 when missiles intercepted a drone B-17 Flying Fortress. By 1958, the year Beverly Housing was built, the War Department had more than 260 sites across the United States. The Beverly Nike site, missiles and all, was located on Brimbal Hill Road, just north of Route 128 near the present site of the Beverly Reservoir.
The Nike Project was mostly phased out by 1974 and nothing remains of the Nike site at Beverly other than the housing units.
The Coast Guard took over the 5.36 acres of land and its 16 houses in the 1990s. Since then, various facility work has been completed to bring them into the twentieth century. Unlike their original design, our family units now have forced-air heat, city water, and city sewer. Nevertheless, our Beverly Family Housing community still maintains that late 1950s charm.