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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 41 WOODLAND ROAD MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 0 2172 ❑ 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. 41 Woodland Road occupies a large lot in a secluded part of the residential neighborhood of Meriam Hill. The building is set well back from the street and faces the side of the parcel. Maintained chiefly in lawn, the lot slopes up rather steeply from the street to the back of the property, employing fieldstone retaining walls and two sets of stone steps to accommodate the slope of the land. Mature trees are scattered throughout the site. A semi-circular paved driveway extends across the street edge of the property. The rectangular house rises 2 '/2 stories from a poured concrete foundation to a saltbox-form roof with side gables. Walls are sheathed with wood clapboards and trimmed with narrow flat corner boards and frieze boards. Windows are typically 8/12 double-hung sash with plain flat trim. A large chimney is centered at the roofline of the building. The asymmetrical, four-bay fagade has a deep overhang at the second story, accented by substantial carved wood drops at the outer corners. Sawn wood brackets frame the four window bays and support the outer corners at the second floor's roof edge. The offset entrance contains a wood paneled door. The asymmetrical right side elevation (facing the street) has two large multi- light picture windows on the first floor, two widely spaced, 8/12 sash on the second floor, and a single 8/12 window centered in the gable peak. A small appendage at the back of this elevation has an asymmetrical gabled roof, vertical wood siding, and an offset doorway; it was originally a garage. Visible portions of the rear elevation show utilitarian fenestration, with two window and a plain doorway at the first floor, surmounted by a long shed dormer with vertical wood siding and three asymmetrically- placed windows. Well-preserved and well-maintained, 41 Woodland Road is an excellent example of mid-20th century Colonial Revival house design in Lexington. The building is notable for its lean-to form, the overhanging second story and ornamental pendants and brackets of its fagade, large chimney, and ample, gracefully landscaped lot. 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. 41 Woodland Road represents the later development of the north slope of Merriam Hill, which continued to attract middle-class professionals. In 1903, the land was surveyed and subdivided for house lots according to a plan prepared by civil engineers H. T.Whitman and Channing Howard. Woodland Road was then named St. Margaret Avenue and was lined with nearly identically sized lots, each with about 100 feet of street frontage and about 130 feet deep. (The present property at 41 Woodland Road occupies about 3 '/2 of these original lots.) On the 1906 map, however, this area was still part of the Hayes Estate, with buildings constructed only along the perimeter roads (Adams and Grant streets). The house at 41 Woodland Road appears to have been built between 1935 and 1940. The current resident reports that Royal Barry Wills was the architect; further research is merited. The first known residents of 41 Woodland Road were John F. Rich, a lawyer, and his wife, Dorothy P., in 1940. Subsequent occupants included Harry L. Hansen, a professor, and his wife Carolyn G. (1955 and 1965); Jeffrey N. Hansen, a student, was also identified here in 1965. Continuation sheet I