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BUILDING FORM ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION ❑ see continuation sheet Describe architectural features. Evaluate the characteristics of this building in terms of other buildings within the community. The Chiesa farmhouse (MHC#704) is one of the few l9th-century farmhouses in Lexington that still has some associated farm outbuildings and land, although in this case the land is now owned by the town as a conservation area. The original part of the house may have been a five-by-two bay,two-story Federal with a hip roof (this section now has a front side chimney). To the original house has then been added a front two-story gable-roofed addition with a ridge chimney, a side two-story addition with a flat roof, and, at the rear, a two-story gabled-roofed addition, a two-story hip-roofed addition with a chimney, and a small one- story hip-roofed addition. The main entry,now enclosed and covered by a porch supported with square pilastered posts, is in the reentrant angle and the windows are 6/6 double hung sash. The large front-gabled barn(MHC#705)adjacent to the house is of post and beam construction. It is clad with wood clapboards, has transom lights over the large door, and a shed-roofed extension on the north end. The side-gabled two-car garage attached to the south end is a converted carriage house. HISTORICAL NARRATIVE ® see continuation sheet 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. It is not clear when the original part of the Chiesa farmhouse was built. It is on what was described in deeds as the"Locke Land," presumably because it had been acquired from the Locke family, and was owned in the early 1840s by Nathan Simonds (b. 1816), son of David Simonds (1771-1835). The house was probably built by David Simonds,who in 1802 acquired a nine-acre parcel that had once belonged to the Lockes. But the assessed value of David's real estate only increased from$900 in 1801 to$1100 in 1802 and$1200 in 1803, most of it probably because of the newly-acquired land and not enough to indicate a new house, and the Direct Tax of 1798 indicates that David Simonds already had a house in 1798. David Simonds bought an adjoining eight-acre parcel from the Lockes in 1830,but the Lexington assessors' records do not indicate that he built a new house on it. These records do show,however, that Nathan, who inherited the property after his father's death, put an addition on the existing house in 1841. In 1845 Nathan transferred the property to his father-in-law, Schuyler Parks of Lincoln, and then reportedly moved to California. In 1867 the property was acquired by a George R. Phelps,who apparently improved the house, for its assessment increased from$600 in 1868 to$1600 in 1872. In 1897 the farm was acquired by the mother of Charles H. Bugbee,who served as a Lexington assessor in 1911, and it was evidently he that named it Maplemere Farm. In 1905 the Lexington Minute-man noted: "A magnificent bunch of dahlias, of numerous varieties,we admired the other day,were culled from the gardens of Maplemere Farm on Adams Street,the home of Charles H. Bugbee." BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES ® see continuation sheet John Chiesa, personal communication 1998. Direct Tax of 1798. Microfilm. Cary Library, Lexington, MA. Hudson, Charles. History of the Town of Lexington. Revised and continued to 1912 by the Lexington Historical Society. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1913. 2: 625. Lexington Valuation Lists. 1795-1845, 1868, 1872. Middlesex Registry of Deeds. Deeds. 146: 419; 310: 322; 436: 490; 774: 368; 1003: 421; 2594: 230; 4375: 237. ❑ Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. If checked,you must attach a completed National Register Criteria Statement form.