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BUILDING FORM (14 Locust Avenue) ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION Describe architectural features. Evaluate the characteristics of the building in terms of other buildings within the community. Located at the corner of Locust Avenue and Tower Road,the Pierce House is a two-story building displaying a cross gable plan. The house is set above a stone foundation laid with a raised bead joint. The bulk of the building is sheathed in wood clapboards with the projecting gables filled with staggered butt shingles. Each of the gables display a lower edge which is indented and curved with a diamond-shaped window at the top of the gable. At the junction of the gablefront and the east projecting gable is a single-story porch which projects slightly. The porch is supported by bold,turned posts with quarter- round caps with rondels. Spanning the porch posts are stick balusters set above a wooden deck with latticed airspace below. Underneath the porch,the main entrance facing the street contains a glass-and-panel door. The front gable is two bays wide with 2/1 windows on the upper level, capped by lipped lintels and flanked by wooden blinds. The first floor displays cutaway corner windows flanking a central 2/1 sash. The south gable is three bays deep on the upper level and has a modern bay window and 2/1 window below. Projecting from the west elevation is a two-story, three-sided bay window capped by a conical roof. Extending behind the main house is a two-story, c.1980 addition set above a concrete foundation and displaying several decorative gables on the Tower Road elevation. The predominant fenestration on the addition is a casement window. Another addition is currently under construction at the rear. HISTORICAL NARRATIVE Describe 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. Construction of this house was begun during the summer of 1897 for Loring Ellsworth Pierce in anticipation of his marriage to Annie McManus in December 1897. According to a brief mention in the Lexington Minute-man on July 2, 1897, Pierce had just purchased a house lot on Locust where he intended to build a house. "Mr. Flynn"was credited with doing the stone work. A listing for the couple appears in the 1899 directory. Directories also indicate that Mr. Pierce was employed as a letter carrier and later worked in sales. Annie Pierce is shown as the owner of the house on the 1906 map. L. Ellsworth and Annie Pierce continued to live at 14 Locust into the 1940s. The house was known as 12 Locust until the mid 1930s. Ownership of the house lata passed to other family members of Annie Pierce, including Gertrude McManus (c.1950)and Howard and Margaret McManus (c.1960-c.1970). It has been owned by the Abrams family since the mid 1970s. BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES Hudson, Charles. History of the Town of Lexington. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1913, vol. 2, p. 539. Lexington Assessors Records. Lexington Directories, various dates. Lexington Minute-man, 7/2/1897. Le�ington Valuation Lists, various dates. 196 map. Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. If checked,you must attached a completed National Register Criteria Statement form.