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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 110 BEDFORD STREET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 2187 ❑ 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. 110 Bedford Street occupies a small flat lot at the corner of Bedford and Shirley streets. Maintained chiefly in lawn, the property also contains scattered small shrubs and tree, a paved driveway off Bedford Street to the right of the house and a paved parking area on the Shirley Street side of the house. The 2 '/2 story building consists of a rectangular main block with a small appendage on the right side. The two by two bay main block rises from a fieldstone foundation with deeply recessed joints and granite block quoins at the corners to a front gable roof with gable returns. Walls are clad with wood shingles and trimmed with a sill board with a plain cap and a narrow plain fascia with rectangular trim. Windows typically have 2/1 double-hung replacement sash with narrow band molding. The Bedford Street fagade has a hip roofed porch across its full length, and an off-center, single-leaf door with paired windows to the left and a single window to its right. Two windows are symmetrically arranged on the second floor. Slightly flared at its base, the half-story has a plain flat base course at its base, patterned shingles, and a single window set high in the peak. The right side elevation has irregular fenestration and a large entry vestibule. Located near the midpoint of the elevation, this one-story vestibule has a shed roof and an offset entrance and small window facing the street. Barely visible from the street, near the back corner, is a shallow, one-story shed-roofed projection (perhaps a bay window). The left side elevation has an angled bay window towards the back of the first floor and three single windows. The asymmetrical rear elevation has irregular modern windows and one blocked in window on the first floor, two symmetrical windows on the second floor, and a very small awning window in the half story. A below-grade ramp with poured concrete retaining walls leads to a flush basement door. Well maintained, 110 Bedford Street is a good example of modest early 20th century suburban housing. The house is notable for its full-width front porch, the rustic stonework and quoined foundation, and the subtle but attentive detailing of its wall surfaces. 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 street 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 110 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. No building is shown on this site in the 1906 atlas, but by 1910 the address was occupied by Thomas F. Griffin, an inspector with the electric railway, his wife Mary, her mother(all three born in Ireland), a boarder, I. Marie MacDonald, who worked as a restaurant keeper at the electric railway station, and William J. Leary, a lodger who was a motorman with the electric railway. The Griffins continued living here at least through 1922. By 1935, the house was occupied by Warren E. Hartwell, a manager, and his wife Virginia. The property was subsequently occupied by Joseph A. Connolly, a salesman, his wife Sarah, and two to four of their adult children (1945 and 1955). The Connolly's daughter Sarah was employed as a stenographer and estimator Continuation sheet 2