Lexington Slate & Copper Roofing
Slate and copper roofing on Lexington's antique colonials and historic districts near the Battle Green. Restoration since 2005.
Lexington’s oldest houses stand around a town common where the first shots of the Revolution were fired, and on those houses the roof is decided by a commission before anyone talks about material. Art Slate Roofing has worked Lexington for over twenty years. The owner walks every roof, we measure on site, and the same in-house crew installs what we quote. On a house that was built for slate, we will not talk you into asphalt.
What the district and the era tell us
Lexington reads in layers. The antique colonials and Federal houses cluster around the Battle Green and the old village, the Victorians and Colonial Revivals fill in the streets built out around the rail line, and the postwar ranches and split-levels spread across the rest of the town. The decade a house went up usually decides what belongs back on top of it.
Roofing inside Lexington’s historic districts
Lexington has four Local Historic Districts: Battle Green, Hancock-Clarke, Munroe Tavern, and East Village, set up under the 1956 act that created the Historic Districts Commission. About 2,000 properties sit inside them. If your house is one, a visible change to the roof goes in front of the commission before work starts, and the review can cover the material, the color, the flashing, and any new dormer or skylight. We have taken roofs through that kind of review before, and we build the slate samples and drawings the commission wants so the meeting does not stall your job. If you are not sure whether your street is inside a district, the Lexington Historic Districts Commission publishes the boundaries and rules, or we will check the parcel for you. Our note on historic roof permits around Boston walks through what that review actually asks for.
- 2005 Family-run since
- 4.9★ 23 Google reviews
- 75–150 yr Slate roof lifespan
- In-house Crew — never subcontracted
Licensed & Insured · MA Construction Supervisor · MHIC Registered
Ice dams on Lexington’s shaded lots
The mature trees that make the old neighborhoods feel settled also keep roofs cold and shaded through the winter. Snow holds on the north slopes long after an open lot has cleared, attic heat melts it from underneath, and the runoff refreezes at the eave until it backs up under the slate. On antique Lexington houses with original slate and thin attic ventilation, that is the leak we get called about every winter. Clearing the ice treats the symptom. We fix the ventilation and the eave flashing that let the dam form. More on that in our guide to preventing ice dams in New England.