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BUILDING FORM ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION ❑see continuation sheet Describe architectural features. Evaluate the characteristics of this building in terms of other buildings within the community. Although 53 Hancock St. appears to be a Colonial Revival house with Jacobethan details, it is actually an Italianate that has had many alterations and is thus unlike any other house in Lexington. The original house was apparently a three-by-two bay,center entrance, side-gabled Italianate with wide corner boards and a frieze board across the front and rear and possibly also the gable ends. It was set on a granite foundation, which can be seen to the right of the main entrance, and clad with clapboards;the present roof is of slate. Two additions,both on fieldstone foundations, were then added to the east end of the house. The first,which is set back on the front and offset on the rear elevation, is, like the original house, 2'/z stories and side-gabled. The second addition is two stories high with a gable on hip roof. A third addition extends out from the front of the house; it is also two stories with the first story left open to form a porte cochere supported by the corner posts and Tuscan columns. Many Colonial Revival and Jacobethan details have been added to the original house and first addition: three front-gabled dormers on both the front and rear elevations, modillions at the cornice of the house and dormers,curved brackets at the eaves on the gable ends, stucco and half- timbering in the gable ends and on the dormers, a dentil course at the top of the frieze board on the front gable end, an enclosed wraparound porch with a circular bay at the rear and paneling under the windows, diamond-paned windows,etc. The exterior center chimney on the original house is undoubtedly also a later addition;this house also has a ridge chimney and there is an end chimney in the first addition. HISTORICAL NARRATIVE ® see continuation sheet 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. David A. Tuttle, a prominent 19th-century builder in Lexington,wrote in 1904 that he built the original part of this house in 1849 for Joseph F. Simonds. This construction date is confirmed by Lexington assessors' records,which show that in 1850 Simonds was assessed for a new house. Assessors' records also indicate that Simonds had acquired the land on which this house is located from Nathan and William Chandler in 1849, although the deed was not actually signed until 1851. The deed says, however,that there was already a house on the land, so perhaps the 1849 acquisition had been an informal agreement. The deed also specified that no house was ever to be built between this one and Hancock St. and there was a similar restriction in the deed for the house originally at 55 Hancock St. (MHC#732), now moved to 56 Hancock St. (MHC#733). This house appears to have been originally a three-by-two bay side gabled Italianate(see Architectural Description above), which would have been similar in massing to the house that Tuttle built in 1855 at 22 Hancock St. (MHC#106). Simonds,who had sold his family farm on Burlington St. (9 Burlington St., MHC#742)just before moving here, did not live in this house very long, however, for in 1854 he sold it to a Henry Harris and moved to the old Fiske house further up Hancock St. (63 Hancock St.,MHC#735). Hams, described in deeds as a"gentleman,"probably put on the two side additions, for both are shown on a plan drawn in 1865 while Harris still owned the house. BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES ❑see continuation sheet Beers, F. W. County Atlas of Middlesex Massachusetts. New York: J.B. Beers & Co., 1875. Lexington Center plate. Hudson, Charles. History of the Town of Lexington. Revised and continued to 1912 by the Lexington Historical Society. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1913. 2: 25. Middlesex Registry of Deeds. Deeds. Plans. Cambridge, MA. 609: 402; 668: 560; 1042: 103; 3547: 73; 3968: 326; Pl. Bk. 15, Pl. 33. Tuttle, David Ainsworth. List of buildings erected in Lexington. Presented to the Lexington Historical Society,April 4, 1904. On file at Lexington Historical Society,Lexington,MA. Worthen, Edwin B. Letter to Mrs. Bruce Currie, 16 February 1951. Worthen Collection. Cary Library, Lexington, MA. ❑ Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. If checked,you must attach a completed National Register Criteria Statement form.