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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 23 CEDAR STREET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 2200 ❑ 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. 23 Cedar Street occupies a small, flat lot with a modest front setback. The house appears vacant and the lot is overgrown, although it appears to originally have had a small lawn in the front. A narrow paved driveway leads to a garage near the back corner of the lot. The house consists of a 2-story, square main block with a side ell. The small main block rises from a fieldstone foundation to a low hip roof clad with asphalt shingles. A chimney is located near the peak on the left slope of the roof. Walls are clad with wood clapboards and trimmed with narrow flat corner boards and a narrow bed molding at the eaves. Windows typically have 6/1 wood sash (original or early) and flat casings with narrow band molding. The front fagade has a full-length front porch with three Tuscan columns and a wood railing with square balusters. Behind the porch on the first floor are an offset door and two windows. Two windows are symmetrically arranged on the second floor. Wood steps to the front entrance have square posts with ball finials. A one-story side gabled addition extends to the left, flush with the fagade of the main block; it rises from a poured concrete foundation. This ell has two windows facing the street and a broad exterior chimney on its side elevation. Above the ell, the left side of the main block has one window on the second floor. The right side elevation of the main block has two window bays, with a single window and a small angled bay window on the first floor and two single windows above. A small, detached garage to the back and right of the house has a hip roof with flared eaves and exposed rafter ends. Walls are clad with wood clapboards and flat wood trim. The structure's one vehicle bay is enclosed with a pair of double-leaf, hinged doors constructed of vertical wood boards. Although poorly maintained, 23 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 modest scale, characteristic Four-Square massing, rustic stone foundation, front porch, high architectural integrity(including window sash), and distinctive original 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#23. The earliest known residents of this house are thought to be Joseph P. Grace, a gardener, and his wife Mary S. (1922). From at least 1930 through 1940, the house was occupied by Homer J. Bartlett, identified as a carpenter, shipper, and clerk; his wife Gladys; and their three Continuation sheet 2