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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 9 BELFRY TERRACE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 2190 ❑ 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. 9 Belfry Terrace is set on an angle towards the back of a relatively large, deep lot. Maintained chiefly in lawn, the property slopes up considerably from the street. A long paved driveway extends diagonally from the street to the back of the house, marked by a pair of trees at the entrance from the street. Other street trees punctuate the Belfry Terrace frontage, and mature trees are also scattered along the side and back of the property. The 2'/2 story building consists of a simple rectangular block with a small rear ell centered on the back elevation (and not visible from the public way). The substantial, three by two bay main block rises from a granite rubble foundation to a high hip roof with a single, gabled dormer visible on its right slope. Walls are sheathed with wood clapboards on the first floor and wood shingles on the second floor, with a plain flat belt course between them and flat corner boards at the first floor. The fagade comprises a full-length, one- story verandah, above which is centered a large gabled pavilion. The porch has square Tuscan posts, a modern wood railing with widely spaced square balusters, a narrow entablature, hip roof, and exposed beams on the interior ceiling. It is accessed by a broad front stairway with wood steps and parged stone cheek walls. The outer bays of the facade each contain one window on each floor. A single leaf door is centered on the first floor. A deep gabled pavilion (without gable returns) projects above the porch roof at the second story. It has one window centered on the front and side elevations at the second floor and a small narrow window centered at the attic level. The asymmetrical right side elevation contains two widely spaced, vertically aligned windows on each floor. A small gabled dormer(no gable returns) is centered on the roof. The left side elevation and rear elevation are not visible from the public way. Generally well preserved and well maintained, 9 Belfry Terrace is a good example of turn of the 20th century suburban housing on an unusually secluded in-town site. Although relatively spare in its detailing, the building is notable for its full-length veranda, stately front steps, cross-gabled fagade pavilion, substantial massing, and commanding siting. 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. Belfry Terrace represents the early expansion of modest, affordable suburban housing in Lexington's town center. Assessors' records for this house show a construction date of 1897, although historic records suggest it was built between 1922 and 1930. The undeveloped land now occupied by the residential enclave of Belfry Terrace is labeled "Belfry Hill" in the 1898 atlas and was owned by the Rindge Estate. (No Rindges are named at adjacent parcels.) The street first appears in the records between 1922 and 1930. In the latter year, the house was owned and occupied by the family of Julius Seltzer, a tailor born in Austria who had a shop nearby at 1853 Massachusetts Avenue. (In 1924, the family was living just around the corner, at 49 Forest Street.) Seltzer's household in 1930 included his wife Rebecca, born in Russia, and three grown children: Max (a chemical engineer), Edith (an assistant buyer for a department store) and Pauline (a salesperson). The Seltzer family remained here at least through 1945. The house was later occupied by William N. Herbert, a teacher, and his wife Isabel (1955) and by David F. Hawkins, a professor, and his wife Patricia (1965) BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES Continuation sheet 2