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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 27 Locust Avenue MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 1589 Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. If checked,you must attach a completed National Register Criteria Statement form. ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION: Describe architectural features. Evaluate the characteristics of this building in terms of other buildings within the community. Set above the road and screened by foliage, 27 Locust Avenue is older than the surrounding properties and appears to date to the late 19th century with considerable alteration in the 20th century. The 1 %2-story, side-gabled structure is sheathed in wood shingles and capped by an asphalt-shingled roof with two gable dormers. Centered on the five-bay facade is a pedimented entrance porch supported by plain posts with a two-part frieze and decorative brackets. The front door is flanked by full sidelights. The adjacent openings consist of paired 6/1 windows with exterior storms and wooden shutters with cut-out tree motifs and a large kneewall area above the windows. The gable ends have a decorative raking and the ends are supported by decorative brackets. On each end of the house there is a semi-circular lunette lighting the attic and a shed dormer spans the rear slope. A single-story enclosed porch spans both the east and west gable ends. Concrete steps lead down to the street lined by a stone wall that extends across the front sidewalk as well. There is a gablefront garage behind the house. 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. This house does not appear to be present on the 1889 map but was probably built soon thereafter; it is the only house extant in the vicinity on the 1898 map. The surrounding land had all been laid out into lots by that time and was owned by John H. Blodgett. In 1893 deeds and the local newspaper indicate that the property was sold by the John Blodgett heirs to Mark F. Burns (Minute-man,May 19, 1893; Registry Book 2213,Page 487). Burns served as the mayor of Somerville from 1885 to 1888. He died in 1898. On the 1906 map the house is labeled as being owned by the Mark Burns estate. By 1930 the house appears to have been occupied by William Robbins, a contractor. William Mallara was living here in 1942. BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES Lexington Minute-man,May 31, 1893 Middlesex South Registry of Deeds, Cambridge,Mass. Town Directories U.S. Census,various years. 1889, 1898, 1906 maps Continuation sheet 1