220 Mass. 270 | Mass. | 1915
One Shapleigh in 1890 owned seven contiguous lots on the northerly side of Beacon Street. The one on the corner of St. Mary’s Street was vacant. A block of four houses stood on the four lots next to the corner, which Shapleigh had erected, all having a similar depth from Beacon Street. In that year he sold the house and lot next but one to the corner to the respondents, delivering at the same time with the deed a letter signed by himself, in which he said:
“As one of the considerations of your purchase from me of the house on the northerly side of Beacon Street near Saint Mary’s Street, I agree with you that the house first erected on my parcel*272 of land at the northeast corner of said Beacon Street and Saint Mary’s Street shall not be more than four feet deeper from said Beacon Street, than the present rear wall of the house so purchased by you of me; and I further agree with you that if I should sell said parcel of land before I had so built thereon, that I will incorporate in my deed thereof a restriction substantially similar in form to the above agreement. This agreement and restriction to apply solely to the house first erected on my said premises and not to any house subsequently erected thereon.”
The petitioner has become the owner of the corner lot through several mesne conveyances. The deed from Shapleigh, under which he holds title, contained a restriction in substance the same as that set out in the letter of 1890 to the respondents just quoted. In 1911 the petitioner built a house on his lot which conformed to the terms of the deed. He now proposes, without tearing down that house, to erect another building on the lot which will partly cover that portion of the lot more than four feet deeper from Beacon Street than the rear wall of the respondents’ house. The question is whether the respondents can prevent him from executing this purpose.
If it be assumed in favor of the respondents (but without so deciding) that they have a right to enforce the restriction in the petitioner’s deed, that restriction, rightly construed, does not prohibit the erection of the proposed building. The words used in the instrument creating the restriction must define in terms its scope. While they must be read in the light of the subject matter to which they refer and must be interpreted in a way, consistent with their true meaning, to effectuate what may be presumed to have been the reasonable purpose of the parties, yet they cannot be stretched beyond their fair import .to accomplish what it may be thought the parties would have desired had the situation, which now has developed, been foreseen by them at the time when the restriction was written. Boston Baptist Social Union v. Boston University, 183 Mass. 202.
The words of the Shapleigh letter and deed are restricted by definite and unequivocal phrase to “the house first erected” on the petitioner’s lot. Any subsequent building is excluded expressly from its operation. There is no word to indicate a purpose that only one house or building shall be built on the lot at
Exceptions overruled.
