holland-street_0017 - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 17 HOLLAND STREET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 2236 ❑ 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. 17 Holland Street is positioned in the center of a comparatively large lot, with a modest setback from Holland Street. The land slopes steeply down to the north. The yard is occupied by planting beds and narrow bands of lawn abutting the house, scattered shrubs, and perimeter trees. A wooden stairway leads down from the street to a stone walkway connecting to the front entrance. The parcel is surrounded by mature woodland along the undeveloped Hillside Avenue. A paved driveway and gravel parking area is located at the southeast corner of the property, in front of the house. The three by two bay main block of the house rises 2 '/2 stories from a stone foundation to a high hip roof with a chimney on the right front slope. The south (fagade) and east elevations each contain a one-story appendage. Walls are clad with vinyl siding and trim. Windows typically have 1/1 and occasionally 6/1 double-hung replacement sash without casings. The fagade (south elevation) contains a full-length, one-story projection with a low hip roof. The enclosed eastern third of this projection has a pair of casement windows. An open porch occupies the western portion of the projection, comprised of square posts and a railing of modern turned balusters. A shallow pedimented portico is centered on the building, on axis with a single-leaf door on the main block. To the right of this entrance is a small octagonal window. Offset on the westernmost bay of the fagade is another single leaf door with half height sidelights and a small octagonal window to its left. A shallow rectangular projection is centered on the second floor of the main block, containing two small 6/1 windows. The outer bays of the second floor each contain a single window. A long, low, hip-roofed dormer is centered in the half story, with three asymmetrical windows. The east (right side) elevation contains a triplet of casement windows near the front of the first floor, two windows of varied size on the second, and a high hip-roofed dormer with two 1/1 windows in the half story. A one-story appendage with a hip roof extends along the northern half of this elevation, with a single-leaf door centered in the wall facing the street and a small wood stairway with wood railings. The irregular west (left side)elevation of the main block contains 1/1 windows of various sizes. Although well maintained, 17 Holland Street has lost considerable historic integrity through the application of vinyl siding, loss of original trim, altered fenestration, replacement sash, and replaced porch elements. The house is notable for its substantial size and scale, picturesque roof edge, and manipulations of the wall planes. 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. 10 Holland Street is part of an early area of suburban infill along Massachusetts Avenue near the Arlington town line. Hillside Avenue, which abuts this property to the north, was laid out by 1898 with a multitude of small narrow lots on both sides and along Massachusetts Avenue. The Hillside Avenue subdivision was directly opposite the East Lexington Station of the Boston & Maine Railroad and obviously was intended to appeal to commuters. A short connector road, appropriately named Station Street(not extant), led directly from the station to Hillside Ave. The only other evidence of development along this section of Mass. Ave. at this time is the L-shaped beginning of Charles and Cherry streets to the east, where ten house lots were laid out but vacant. Holland Street extends north from Taft Avenue, which comprises the northern border of another early area of suburban infill housing, Liberty Heights. Liberty Heights (LEX.Q)was a hilltop subdivision laid out by Brookline developer Jacob W. Wilbur in 1909 and developed in the teens and twenties. Holland Street appears as an unpaved extension of Taft Avenue on the 1927 Sanborn map, with only one house built on it, and no development along the adjacent Hillside Avenue. The house at 17 Holland Continuation sheet I