LYNN — Formerly a convent before its conversion into a social service agency, 55 Lynn Shore Drive has a new owner who plans to move his family into the big beachfront house next month.
“I plan to live in the house. I like the location,” Giorgio DiCostanzo said Monday.
DiCostanzo bought the big white building at the corner of Peirce Road for $590,000 on Nov. 5, according to Southern Essex Registry of Deeds records. The property is valued at $779,000.
DiCostanzo, who currently lists East Boston as his address, said he has experience renovating and restoring buildings with projects he has undertaken ranging from small to large scale. He said he will renovate 55 Lynn Shore Drive and, he hopes, move into the building in February.
“I’m going to restore it gradually,” he said.
City Inspectional Services Department records date the building back to 1909, when a city “new building” card listed its estimated construction cost at $12,000. A building on the property was moved that year from an adjoining lot to 55 Lynn Shore Drive, and the Little Sisters of the Assumption, a women’s religious order, subsequently acquired the property as a convent.
Mary Bagley has lived on Peirce Road for almost 50 years. She attended Mass in a former chapel on the convent site and said the nuns were good neighbors.
“Everything was very quiet. The property was perfectly kept up,” she said.
Little Sisters of the Assumption expanded 55 Lynn Shore Drive in the 1950s, and city records mark the property’s transition to Catholic Family Services in 1980. Catholic Charities North operated in the building for 20 years until last November when the agency’s 46 workers moved to the former Project Cope office on North Common Street.
Catholic Charities North Director Virginia Doocy last April said 55 Lynn Shore Drive’s high maintenance costs contributed to the agency’s decision to sell the property. The agency held family preparation classes in 55 Lynn Shore Drive and ran other programs.
“Catholic Charities did good work but we had quite a problem with traffic,” Bagley said.
When it announced plans to sell 55 Lynn Shore Drive, Catholic Charities attracted potential buyers to an open house and potential purchasers made inquiries about the property to the city, including its possible use as a bed and breakfast.
Ward 3 City Councilor Darren Cyr said the property is zoned residential and any other uses planned for it would trigger council or a zoning review. Cyr said area residents told him they were “adamantly opposed to anything but a single-family house there.”
DiCostanzo said he has met some of his neighbors, and Bagley said she is looking forward to hearing his short- and long-term plans for the property.
“I just hope no one takes it over for something that would cause problems in the neighborhood,” she said.
Thor Jourgensen can be reached at [email protected].
