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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 20 CHARLES STREET <br /> MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. <br /> 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 <br /> 2204 <br /> ❑ Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. <br /> If checked,you must attach a completed National Register Criteria Statement form. <br /> Use as much space as necessary to complete the following entries, allowing text to flow onto additional continuation sheets. <br /> ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION: <br /> Describe architectural features. Evaluate the characteristics of this building in terms of other buildings within the community. <br /> 20 Charles Street occupies a small lot at the corner of Stevens Road. The land slopes down gently from right to left across the <br /> site. Set at the front left corner of its parcel, the house has a minimal front setback; the yard is maintained chiefly in lawn. A <br /> short asphalt sidewalk leads from the sidewalk to the front entrance. A paved driveway extends to the left of the house. The <br /> building consists of a 1 '/2 story main block with a rear appendage. <br /> The main block rises from a fieldstone foundation with deeply recessed mortar joints to a front gambrel roof with a center <br /> chimney and a flared roof skirt joining the ends of the gambrel and separating the upper and lower floors. Walls are sheathed <br /> with clapboards and trimmed with flat corner boards and a narrow bed molding at the eaves. Windows typically have 1/1 double <br /> hung replacement sash with a narrow band molding. The front fagade (west elevation) contains an off-center, single-leaf door <br /> accessed by stone steps; it is flanked by a small horizontal window to the right and two 1/1 windows to the left. Centered in the <br /> half-story are three loosely grouped windows, comprised of a large 1/1 window flanked by a narrow 1/1 window on either side. <br /> All three half-story windows have diamond-paned lights in their upper sash. <br /> The symmetrical left (north side) elevation contains a tripartite window unit centered between two single windows in the outer <br /> bays. A shed-roofed dormer with a single window projects above the back end of the gambrel roof. The irregular south (right <br /> side) elevation of the main block features two small awning windows and a single 1/1 window towards the back. A one-story, <br /> shed-roofed extension spans the entire length of the back elevation and projects beyond the right side of the main block. It has <br /> a shed-roofed dormer with a single window on the right (south) side. Lined by a modern wood deck, the rear elevation of the <br /> extension features two 1/1 windows and a bow window. <br /> Well preserved and well maintained, 20 Charles Street is representative of modest, early 20th century suburban housing in <br /> Lexington. The house is notable for its simple, intact massing; rustic masonry foundation; distinctive front-gambrel roof; and <br /> diamond-paned window sash at the front fagade. <br /> HISTORICAL NARRATIVE <br /> Discuss the history of the building. Explain its associations with local(or state)history. Include uses of the building, and the role(s) the <br /> owners/occupants played within the community. <br /> The small grid of streets bordered by Massachusetts Avenue, Hibbert Street, Taft Avenue, and Bowker Street represents an <br /> early area of suburban infill in East Lexington, near the Arlington town line. Immediately south of Taft Avenue is Liberty Heights <br /> (LEX.Q), a hilltop subdivision laid out by Brookline developer Jacob W. Wilbur in 1909 and developed in the teens and twenties. <br /> The growth of both these neighborhoods followed the arrival of the electric street railway on Massachusetts Avenue in 1899 and <br /> was directed at working class residents. <br /> In the area adjacent to Massachusetts Avenue known as Dexter Hillside, Hibbert and Sylvia streets, which straddle the <br /> Lexington/Arlington line, were laid out, platted, and partially developed by 1898. The only other evidence of development here at <br /> that time is the L-shaped beginning of Charles and Cherry streets, where ten house lots were laid out but vacant. By 1927, both <br /> Charles and Bowker streets extended from Massachusetts Avenue to Taft Avenue, and the western ends of Cherry Street, <br /> Stevens (then Cary) Road, and Camden (then Smythe) Street pushed a few lots eastward from Charles. Development was <br /> gradual through the 1920s and 30s and was virtually complete, with the present network of streets, by 1950. <br /> Continuation sheet 2 <br />