About five years ago, I had a conversation with a local architect about a home he had worked on in Chestnut Hill, and our conversation turned to new construction in Chestnut Hill.

“There aren’t many lots in Chestnut Hill where you can build new homes,” he said. “But there’s a lot of demand for new homes in the neighborhood. Clients ask me all the time about building in Chestnut Hill.”

I think of that conversation often as this paper covers various projects across the neighborhood. Form recently finished new homes that were built on empty lots on Ardleigh Street and Gravers Lane, to new structures next to old homes on East and West Chestnut Hill Avenue.

A side effect of the remarkable preservation work that has made Chestnut Hill one of the city’s most desirable neighborhoods has also made it a place where developers will jump at the opportunity to build. If you build it in Chestnut Hill, you can be sure someone will buy it. And the city’s 10-year tax abatement on new construction makes it that much more desirable.

Those same economic forces are going to be in play for the property at 540 W . Moreland Ave., which sold some time last week to a buyer whose name we don’t yet know. Moreland Avenue is a beautiful tree-lined street in a quiet part of Chestnut Hill. A new home – or two new homes – will likely fetch a handsome price.

So it should come as no surprise that the property sold in a matter of days after it was listed. Any developers looking to build in Chestnut Hill were likely paying close attention to the property, waiting for it to come available, knowing that the land was far more valuable than the old home on top of it.

At stake, according to the Chestnut Hill Conservancy, is a piece of a notable estate. The property was a wing of the Keewaydin estate, built in 1899 for Edward Clark Jr. The estate had been subdivided into three residences, the other two of which are still occupied as private residences.

It’s hard to fault developers in these circumstances. They’re clearly building homes that people want to buy in a neighborhood in which people want to live. If there was no demand for new construction in Chestnut Hill, there wouldn’t be the pressure to build.

But if and when – more likely when – 540 W . Moreland is razed to make way for new construction, not only will that piece of architectural history be lost, but the character of the street – the relationship of the street to the homes built on it – will change dramatically. That home has stood there on that land that way for 120 years. It’s a lot of history to change.

Change is inevitable, and not necessarily detrimental. Those new homes can add something to the character of Chestnut Hill. The question must be: At what cost? There isn’t an easy answer.

Pete Mazzaccaro