harrington-road_0005 Enhanced Building Form

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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 5 HARRINGTON ROAD MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Continuation sheet 1 B, AC LEX.55 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, 2021. Original construction The initial construction period for the Harrington house is well documented by a brief contract between Betty Harrington and Jonathan Loring, builder, in which Loring agrees “to Sett up the Frame of a house for Dan’l Harrington Jr near the meeting house in Lexington on or before the tenth Day of April next for the Sum of thirty three Pounds of the following Dementions viz, 38 feet Long 32 feet wide 18 feet Posts with hipt roof, the Sills & posts to be of ok (large) Deep Joyce, all the timber to be large and good by the Judgement of a workman, the Dementions of the Doors & windows to be given hearafter and the Chimneys.” The contract is dated 12 February 1794 and is preserved in the house. This contract describes a nearly square house with dimensions (38 ft. by 32 ft.) comprising the two-story house and the lean-to across the back; it excludes the two-story wings attached to the east and west ends of the house, which were added later in the early 19th century. The contract does not mention that the ends of the front, hipped-roof section are constructed of brick. The front of the house has a generally symmetrical single-pile, center-passage plan and a five-bay facade; the two bays to the west of the central passage are slightly closer together than those of the east half of the house. The cellar space is directly under both the main block of the house and the lean-to. The rear (north) wall of the hipped-roof portion of the house is supported on a row of posts, which appears to be an original condition, given the specifications in the contract. There is no indication that any of the spaces in the basement were used for habitation. There is no indication of a basement kitchen. Whitewash in many areas, and shelving found within the chimney supports do, however, indicate food storage areas. The hipped portion of the roof is conventionally framed with principal rafters and common purlins with a ridge beam. The roof is vertically boarded with pine boards bearing broad parallel kerfs and is covered with wood shingles. There is no indication that the attic was ever used for anything except storage; there are no wall or ceiling finishes in this space which has minimal headroom although it is substantially floored. Nineteenth Century Alterations At least three rounds of alterations to the house were undertaken in the 19th century. The earliest of these is represented by the Greek Revival architraves and baseboards found throughout the first floor, and in the six-over-six windows and newel and balusters of the main staircase. It may be that the original stair had a different configuration; at the second-floor level, a closed- up door to the northeast chamber is visible within the attic stair enclosure; the present stair configuration would have made access to a door in that location impossible. The two staircases that rise in the lean-to appear to have been constructed at this time. Both appear to make use of newel caps that probably originated with the 1794 staircase, and it is possible that other elements including square newel posts, railings, balusters, and structural elements, may have been reused as well, particularly in the east staircase. The difference in construction techniques used in the design of these two stairs may represent levels of finish desired by members of the two different households, but also probably reflects the need to supplement the 1794 stair materials with new work for the completion of the west stair. It is not presently known whether the lean-to was originally constructed of one or two stories in height; if the former, it was extended to two full stories at this time. This work appears to date to the ca. 1835-55 period. At a date not long after, and by 1865 when the work is documented by the earliest photograph of the house, the lean-to on the north side of the house was extended east and west in the form of two-story wings. This work was accomplished to further the occupation of the house by two family groups and included the construction of back-to-back fireplaces (possibly for coal burners, given their shallow depth) in the two northern chimneys. The first-floor mantles in both the east and west wings have features that reflect both the Greek and Gothic revival styles, and the baseboards have ogee caps, suggesting a later date of construction than the ca. 1835-55 work, perhaps closer to ca. 1860. The wings were, like the main block of the house, constructed using traditional box framing techniques.