Natick Real Estate

Natick's story starts in South Natick, where the Puritan missionary John Eliot organized a "praying town" of Native converts in the mid-1600s beside the Charles River. The commercial center later moved north to the railroad, and Natick Center became a shoemaking town of brick blocks and Victorian houses around the Common. Today the Boston Marathon runs straight through it on Route 135, and the old 1875 Central Fire Station is home to The Center for Arts in Natick.

Natick Center gathers shops, the Morse Institute Library and the Common around Main Street and Central Street, a few steps from the rebuilt Natick Center station. Route 9 runs along the north side of town with the Natick Mall and other retail. For the outdoors, Lake Cochituate and Cochituate State Park offer swimming and boating along the Wayland line, and Mass Audubon's Broadmoor Wildlife Sanctuary follows the Charles and Indian Brook in South Natick.

Natick has a single ZIP code, but its sections differ quite a bit, so it helps to visit Natick Center, South Natick and the neighborhoods off Route 9 before deciding where to focus. The walk from a house to the Common and the train, or the drive to Route 9, often decides more than the floor plan.