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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 18 BOWKER STREET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 2196 ❑ 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. 18 Bowker Street occupies a small lot that is level at the right side and slopes steeply down to the left. Set at an angle to the street, the building has modest front and side setbacks, which are maintained with lawn and extensive landscaping. A brick walkway and wood stairway access the front entrance, and a fieldstone retaining wall runs perpendicular to Bowker Street at the left side of the property. A paved driveway leads to the back of the house from neighboring Charles Street. The building consists of a 1 '/2 story main block with side and rear appendages. The nearly square main block rises from a fieldstone foundation with deeply recessed mortar joints to a low hip roof with exposed rafter ends and a center chimney. Low, hip-roofed dormers are centered on each slope. Walls are clad with wood shingles. Windows typically have 1/1 double hung sash with band molding. The symmetrical front facade (west elevation) presents a center entry porch with a low hip roof, flanked on either side by a single 1/1 window. The entry porch is composed of shingled half-walls and piers, arched openings, wood steps, and a single-leaf, wood door. The dormer on this elevation has two narrow awning windows. A half story dormer has a hip roof and two awning windows with band molding. The asymmetrical north (left side) elevation of the main block contains three large 1/1 windows and a shallow rectangular bay window, slightly off-center, with a tripartite unit of 1/1 windows. The dormer on this elevation has two 1/1 windows. The south (right side) elevation of the main block contains a single 1/1 window and a half story dormer with a hip roof and a single 1/1 window. A large 2-story ell projecting from the back of the right side elevation rises from a concrete foundation to a hip roof with exposed rafter ends; a roof skirt at the base of the second story continues the main roof and also displays exposed rafter ends. The street-facing (west)wall of the ell has tri-partite windows on each floor, while its right side (south) elevation has offset, paired windows. Well preserved and well maintained, 18 Bowker Street is a typical example of modest, early 20th century suburban housing in Lexington. The house is notable for its characteristic Bungalow massing, rustic masonry foundation, lively roofline with multiple hip roofs and exposed rafter ends, and, most unusually, its carefully detailed porch. 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. The small grid of streets bordered by Massachusetts Avenue, Hibbert Street, Taft Avenue, and Bowker Street represents an early area of suburban infill in East Lexington, near the Arlington town line, in an area known as Dexter Hillside. Immediately south of Taft Avenue is Liberty Heights (LEX.Q), a hilltop subdivision laid out by Brookline developer Jacob W. Wilbur in 1909 and developed in the teens and twenties. The growth of both these neighborhoods followed the arrival of the electric street railway on Massachusetts Avenue in 1899 and was directed at working class residents. In the area adjacent to Massachusetts Avenue known as Dexter Hillside, Hibbert and Sylvia streets, which straddle the Lexington/Arlington line, were laid out, platted, and partially developed by 1898. The only other evidence of development here at that time is the L-shaped beginning of Charles and Cherry streets, where ten house lots were laid out but vacant. By 1927, both Charles and Bowker streets extended from Massachusetts Avenue to Taft Avenue, and the western ends of Cherry Street, Stevens (then Cary) Road, and Camden (then Smythe) Street pushed a few lots eastward from Charles. Development was gradual through the 1920s and 30s, and was virtually complete, with the present network of streets, by 1950. Continuation sheet 2