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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 92 BEDFORD STREET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 2186 ❑ Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. If checked,you must attach a completed National Register Criteria Statement form. Use as much space as necessary to complete the following entries, allowing text to flow onto additional continuation sheets. ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION: Describe architectural features. Evaluate the characteristics of this building in terms of other buildings within the community. 92 Bedford Street occupies a modest corner lot at the intersection of Bedford and Tewksbury streets. The house is set close to Tewksbury Street on its right side, but has a more generous front setback. The property is flat along Bedford Street and then slopes down along Tewksbury Street; it is maintained chiefly in lawn, with foundation plantings and scattered trees. A low fieldstone retaining wall lines the street corner. Concrete walkways lead from the bordering streets to the front and back entrances, and a paved driveway extends from Tewksbury Street. The building consists of a 2 '/2 story main block with several small appendages and an attached garage at the rear. The main block rises from a rubble and fieldstone foundation (with faint suggestions of quoins at some corners)to a front gable roof with a saltbox extension at the Bedford Street fagade; no gable returns. Walls are clad with wood shingles and trimmed with a simple cornice molding. Windows typically have 1/1 double hung sash with a narrow band molding. The asymmetrical front facade has a one-story enclosed porch along most of its length, with a shed roof and original/early(wood and glass panel)door, and two single windows above. Vertically aligned, paired windows occupy the remaining bay of the fagade on the first two floors. A small double-hung window is set in the half story. The left side elevation has two bays on the main block, with single windows on both floors and an offset single-leaf door accessing a contemporary wood deck along the full length of this wall. The right side (Tewksbury Street) elevation features, towards the back, a large, 2 '/2 story angled bay with decoratively sawn brackets at the eaves, one window on each angled face, and a small window in its half-story. The forward bay of this elevation contains vertically aligned single windows. The asymmetrical rear elevation contains a small, one-story entry vestibule with a hip roof and a side-facing, single-leaf door; two slightly asymmetrical windows on the second floor, and one window centered in the half story. A narrow, gabled breezeway connects the back of the house to the attached garage. The garage has one wide vehicle bay, a side gable saltbox roof, and wood shingles and trim. One eight-light window is asymmetrically set on its right side elevation, and the rear elevation has two symmetrically placed, eight-light sash. Well preserved and well maintained, 92 Bedford Street is a good local example of middle-class suburban architecture of the early 20th century. Substantial in size and massing, the house is notable for its saltbox fagade and integral front porch, large and prominent bay window, and early attached garage. HISTORICAL NARRATIVE Discuss the history of the building. Explain its associations with local(or state)history. Include uses of the building, and the role(s)the owners/occupants played within the community. Bedford Street is an early roadway in Lexington, on the axis of a Native American trail system that was upgraded in the Federal period along with other radial highways through the town. The house at 92 Bedford Street represents the early period of suburbanization in Lexington, in which development along Bedford Street was sparked by the re-building of the roadway and the arrival of street railway service here at the turn of the 20th century. Although no building is shown on this site in the 1906 atlas, the town directory for that year shows Patrick Maguire, a policeman and native of Ireland (1859-1940), living at this address. Identified here with his wife Margaret in 1910, by 1922 Maguire was the town's chief of police. Members of the Maguire family continued to live in the house until at least 1945, including Patrick's son Continuation sheet 2