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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 10 CRESCENT HILL AVE. <br /> MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. <br /> 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 <br /> 2214 <br /> ❑ Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. <br /> If checked,you must attach a completed National Register Criteria Statement form. <br /> Use as much space as necessary to complete the following entries, allowing text to flow onto additional continuation sheets. <br /> ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION: <br /> Describe architectural features. Evaluate the characteristics of this building in terms of other buildings within the community. <br /> 10 Crescent Hill Avenue occupies a small flat lot on the east side of Crescent Hill Avenue. Set well back from the street, the <br /> building has narrow side setbacks and is maintained chiefly in lawn, with foundation plantings at the front and side. Two mature <br /> trees occupy the front yard, with others scattered along the right property line. A concrete block retaining wall and low hedge <br /> line the street edge, with a straight paved walk between the street and front entrance and a paved driveway to the right of the <br /> house. <br /> The three by two bay rectangular main block with a small side ell rises 2 '/2 stories to a front gable roof with gabled returns that <br /> have been boxed in. One interior chimney is located at the center of the ridge line. A one-bay deep, one-story addition across <br /> the front of the house has a shed roof; it may represent an enclosed porch. Windows are typically 1/1 replacement sash without <br /> trim. One 2/2 sash remains in the attic story. The fagade (west) elevation has an offset, single-leaf doorway and one single, one <br /> paired, and one triple window on its one-story addition. Its small entry porch contains wood railings with square balusters and <br /> wood steps. The left (north)side elevation features two symmetrical, widely spaced windows on each floor. The right (south) <br /> elevation has two asymmetrically placed windows on the second floor and an attached garage on the first floor. The garage <br /> features a shed roof, one vehicle bay facing the street, and two six-light windows on its right (south) side. A tall fieldstone <br /> retaining wall extends along the uphill (right)side of the property. <br /> 10 Crescent Hill Avenue significantly pre-dates its surroundings, a largely early to mid 20th century development. Although it has <br /> lost valuable original siding and trim, the house is notable for its deep front setback, front gable orientation, distinctive vertical <br /> proportions, and simplicity of form. <br /> HISTORICAL NARRATIVE <br /> Discuss the history of the building. Explain its associations with local(or state)history. Include uses of the building, and the role(s)the <br /> owners/occupants played within the community. <br /> Crescent Hill Avenue is part of a turn of the 20th century subdivision off Lowell Street, adjacent to the Arlington town line. Lowell <br /> Street appears to have originated as a Native American trail that was developed as an important transportation corridor in the <br /> Colonial period. A new regional turnpike system radiating from Boston was established in the early 19th century; Lowell Street <br /> formed part of the Middlesex Turnpike (ca. 1806), which extended from Cambridge to Tyngsborough and the New Hampshire <br /> border. This peripheral area of East Lexington remained mostly agricultural and sparsely developed through the early 20th <br /> century, however. The Great Meadow marshlands occupy an extensive area bordered by Lowell Street to the east, the Arlington <br /> town line to the south, the railroad to the west, and Maple Street to the north. <br /> Crescent Hill Avenue is part of a subdivision also known as Crescent Hill, which was laid out between 1875 and 1898, under the <br /> ownership of Thomas Elder"et al" in the latter year. Its grid of streets sprawls across the town line into Arlington; its many small <br /> lots were apparently intended for modest suburban housing, although there was no street railway service along Lowell Street. <br /> Hugh Thomas Elder(1844-1902)worked as a printer and later foreman for the Boston Herald. He was active in union <br /> organizing, political activities, and the development of cooperative banks, "eventually becoming a prosperous... real estate <br /> agent' in Arlington Heights. (Stevens: 5) <br /> 10 Crescent Hill Avenue does not seem to exist on this site in 1898 but is clearly present by 1906, under the name of T. Tolson. <br /> An advertisement in the 1906 Lexington directory has this appeal from Tolson, who appears to have been a real estate agent or <br /> speculator: <br /> Continuation sheet I <br />