Laserfiche WebLink
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 130 WALTHAM STREET <br /> MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. <br /> 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 <br /> 2283 <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 /> The Lexington Arts and Crafts Society headquarters building at 130 Waltham Street is a small commercial building at the edge <br /> of Lexington's business district. The building, which faces west, occupies a flat lot which slopes down to the west, off <br /> Massachusetts Avenue at the intersection of Forest Street and is flanked by a large paved parking area on the south, accessed <br /> from Waltham Street. The building sits close to the street with a small yard with plantings and a mature tree, among other office <br /> uses on the south side of the business district. <br /> The Arts and Crafts Society's headquarters is a modest, residentially scaled original structure, built in 1953, facing Waltham <br /> Street, with a long two-story addition, constructed in two phases (1965, 1972) to the rear. Due to the sloping site, the extensions, <br /> though larger than the original headquarters, do not overpower the earlier structure and are architecturally compatible with it. <br /> The 1953 structure consists of a white-painted stucco, gable-roofed rectangular building set parallel to Waltham Street with a <br /> cross-gabled entrance bay of brick which is the decorative focal point of the complex. The brick entrance contains a large single- <br /> lite display window for the Society's gallery framed by wooden pilaster and topped with a sign board announcing the "Gallery." <br /> The entrance, which accessed by a long concrete and cast-iron handicap ramp, features a semi-circular arched opening with an <br /> attractive sky-blue spandrel accented with the Society's seal in carved and gilded wood. The double doors below are paneled <br /> with glazed panels on the upper half. Windows on the front facade have 8/8 double-hung sash with brick sills; a brick chimney <br /> sits on the ridge at the south end of the building. <br /> The south elevation of the building, the end gable of which is sheathed in narrow clapboards, has been painted in a taupe color <br /> to resemble a colonial house and is accented with a painted tree motif at the corner, and a red door at the basement level. The <br /> basement entrance has a gabled hood on wrought iron brackets. <br /> To the rear, the two story addition consists of a gable-roofed 1965 structure extending four bays east on the site to a secondary <br /> entrance in a cross gable midway down the building. The entrance is recessed within a shallowly-projected, brick gable-roofed <br /> porch. A further five-bay long extension of the building, added in 1972, is slightly offset to the north. The white-painted stucco <br /> walls, brick entrance portico and brick window sills of the extensions replicate the design features of the original headquarters <br /> structure. <br /> Well preserved and well maintained, 130 Waltham Street is a handsome and unusually well-crafted example of Colonial Revival <br /> style commercial architecture in Lexington. It is notable for its comparatively moderate size, proportion, and distinctive facade. <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 Lexington Arts and Crafts Society was founded in 1935 when a group of artists and crafts-persons met and drew up a <br /> constitution with the objective "to foster in the community a more active interest in the arts and crafts and to encourage higher <br /> artistic standards in the arts and handicrafts". For nearly twenty years after its founding, the Society carried on its activities in <br /> members' homes and in various public buildings in Lexington. The Society was incorporated in May 1951, and two years later, <br /> in May 1953, the Society voted to build on the land it had previously purchased on Waltham St. <br /> Continuation sheet I <br />