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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 19 CEDAR STREET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 2199 ❑ 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. 19 Cedar Street is positioned near the front corner of a moderately sized lot. Maintained chiefly in lawn, the land slopes up gently from the street, with foundation plantings and scattered trees at the back half of the property. A flagstone path leads from the street to the house's front steps. A paved driveway, framed by rounded poured concrete retaining walls, leads from the street to the garage. The house consists of a rectangular, 1 '/2 story main block. The house rises above a fieldstone foundation with deeply recessed joints to a side gable roof with gable returns. An interior chimney is located on the back slope of the roof, near the center and the ridgeline. Walls are sheathed with wood shingles. Windows have a variety of 6/1, 4/1, and 1/1 double-hung replacement sash their flat casings have a very narrow band molding. The fagade consists of a tri-partite unit of windows on the right end and, on the left, an extension of the main roof over an enclosed sun porch that projects beyond the main block. The main door opens from the side of the sun porch and is accessed by a wood stairway and landing. A hip-roofed dormer with a single window is centered on the front roof slope. The right side elevation has two windows and a side entrance with a small gabled portico on the first floor. Paired windows are centered above in the half story. The left side elevation contains modern glazing at the enclosed sun porch towards the front and two single windows towards the back on the first floor. Paired windows are centered above in the half story. The rear elevation is not visible from the public way, with the exception of a corner of a modern wood deck. At the right front corner of the lot, a one-bay garage rises from a concrete block foundation to a front gable roof with no gable returns. Wood shingles and flat wood trim clad the walls. One window is centered on the long right side elevation. Well maintained and generally well preserved, 19 Cedar Street is a good example of modest, early 20th century suburban housing in an outlying area of Lexington. The house is notable for its characteristic Bungalow massing, especially the integration of the sun porch within the main roof, its intact form and fenestration, and its original or early 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. Cedar Street is an old country road, appearing on the town maps by 1853 (and perhaps as early as 1830), when it extended from what is known today as Massachusetts Avenue (a 17th century highway)to the Tophet Swamp in northwestern Lexington. The town almshouse and poor farm were established on a twenty-acre site at the corner of Hill and Cedar Streets in 1845, where they remained until 1930. Aside from a house at the corner of Mass. Ave. and Cedar Street, until 1875 there was only one house on Cedar before its intersection with Hill Street. The late 19th century saw a flurry of construction on this block, however. By 1898, at least six houses were built on the west side and one on the east side of the road between Mass. Ave. and Columbus Street. Also by 1898, the Boston Female Asylum (an orphanage)occupied a cluster of buildings east of Cedar Street, off Mass. Ave., likely deterring nearby residential development. Early street numbers along Cedar Street are difficult to correlate to present buildings, as they appear to have changed during the 1930s. Six houses were identified on this side of the block in 1922, and likely included the present#19. The earliest known resident of this house is thought to be Mrs. Mina S. Crosby, no occupation known. By 1935, the house was occupied by Bertram H. Dalrymple, a teamster, and Earl W. Folsom, a chauffeur, and his wife Hazel. By 1945, residents included George V. Kropp, a Continuation sheet 2