east-street_0070 Enhanced Building Form

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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 70 EAST STREET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 1 LEX.710 Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. If checked, you must attach a completed National Register Criteria Statement form. ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION: Based on fieldwork by Walter R. Wheeler & Neil Larson The house at 70 East Street was either thoroughly renovated or newly built for Joseph Jr. and Elizabeth Fiske in ca. 1794, the year they were married. The two-story, timber frame, gable roof house has a traditional center-chimney plan with its kitchen in a lean-to, which is a house form characteristic of late 18th-century domestic architecture in Lexington. Physical evidence supports the estimated construction date, and while it is possible that what exists is the result of a renovation, there is little extant to envision it. Alterations occurred in the late 1800s, with significant changes made in 1979 and 2005. The five-bay front façade has an entrance aligned with the center chimney. It contains a 20th-century doorway with a trabeated Greek Revival-style architrave. The second-story window above the entrance is smaller than rest, perhaps to accommodate a porch; it is a feature found on other houses of this period in the town. It appears that the wood clapboard siding and window trim are not original; the window sash, six-over-nine except in the smaller one, which is six-over-six, are replacements. The tops of the second-story windows abut the frieze of a shallow roof eave in an 18th-century manner. Eaves are tight to the end walls, and the saltbox roof slopes down to the first story over the kitchen. A shed dormer was raised across the full extent of the rear elevation in ca. 1979 to increase the height of the interior. The end walls contain single windows under the apex of the gable and centered in the front rooms; additional ones are located in the saltbox section. A story-and-a-half wing was added to the rear of the east elevation in the mid-19th century, purportedly as a physician’s office, although Joseph Fiske, Jr. died in 1837. It has a center entrance flanked by single windows on its street façade and deep eaves typical of the period. The plan of the house, as far as can be determined, originally conformed to the conventional hall and parlor typology, with a lobby entry flanked by parlors and a range of three rooms including a staircase across the back (north). Subsequent alterations and additions to the house have removed most of the back range of rooms, although sufficient evidence was found to facilitate a reconstruction. The chief feature of this group of rooms, the kitchen fireplace, survives intact, although it has lost its original mantle and associated woodwork. This alteration occurred previous to ca. 1920 and appears to have been associated with the installation of a cooking range, perhaps ca. 1880. The four small cabinets above the fireplace were installed, the opening of the firebox was covered with hard brick, and a mantle shelf supported on brackets was installed as part of that work. (A similar shelf was installed over the fireplace in the east chamber at that time.) A counter and built-in shelving, constructed contemporaneously along the west wall of the kitchen was removed—along with the majority of the plank wall that separated that space from the northwest corner room—in the late 20th century (it is unclear whether this was undertaken as part of the 1979 or the 2005 work). Evidence for the location of a rear staircase can be found at the east end of the north range of rooms, adjacent to the east parlor. This stair was removed in 1979. Although the chambers over the parlors and the stair hall connecting them remain intact, alterations which raised the height of the saltbox roof above the north range of rooms, which occurred sometime between the 1920s (when a series of photographs documenting the building were taken) and ca. 1979 also removed the original partitioning in that part of the house. Little of the interior woodwork of the house reflects to the supposed construction date ca. 1753. Rather, finishes appear to date to the post-Revolution period or even later, including the mantles and associated woodwork in the two parlors and the two chambers above them, which date to the late 18th century. The fireboxes are all of the Rumford type, supporting a later than ca. 1753 construction date for those features. Corner posts in the best parlor are cut back so that they do not intrude in the space; this treatment, not found elsewhere in the house, appears to predate the 1920-30 period when the interiors were photographed and may be an original finish. The railing of the main stair is of mahogany and has moldings on one side only. The stairs have some unusual features—including discontinuous stringers, curves in the railing as it approaches intermediary newels, and the balusters, which are rectangular in plan, and have an odd relationship to the tread, being set back from the edge of the stringer. Some of these details are more commonly associated with the Colonial Revival, and although possibly original to the late-18th century, may, instead, date to the turn of the 19th century.