NEWTON, MASS. (WHDH) - A historic home under construction in Newton collapsed on Wednesday afternoon, officials said.
Emergency crews responding to a report of a building collapse on Chestnut Street around 1 p.m. found part of a home that had caved in and collapsed to the ground, according to the Newton Fire Department.
“It’s a mess, it’s horrible,” one woman said. “But, it’s shame because it’s a historical house and now it’s going to be torn down.”
The home was built in 1825 and the current owner had taken out work permits to fix up the place.
“They went through negotiations with the historic district. The house needed a lot of repair,” Commissioner John Lojek said. “They were trying to tear it down initially, the Historical Commission stopped them from doing that.”
The commission allowed the owner to do work on the back of the property so long as they kept the front facade as is. The plan was to later connect the two buildings.
But, with about five workers on site, the old portion fell over.
There were no reported injuries.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration was called to the scene and an investigation was opened to determine why such a controversial construction project all of a sudden collapsed.
“We can’t come to any conclusions at this point,” Lojek said. “We are just trying to figure out what exactly happened here and we will draw our conclusions later.”
8/19 1301 hrs Newton Fire responded to a building collapse on Chestnut st. The house had been under construction and had a partial collapse with no one injured. pic.twitter.com/zvbmV0ylxw
— Newton Fire (@NewtonFireDept) August 19, 2020
This is a developing news story; stay with 7NEWS for updates online and on-air.
(Copyright (c) 2026 Sunbeam Television. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)