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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 39 FARMCREST AVENUE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 2219 ❑ 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. 39 Farmcrest Avenue occupies a small corner lot that slopes up from both street edges to the house. Maintained mostly in lawn, the yard also features foundation plantings, scattered small trees, and a hedge along most of Kendall Road. A paved parking area abuts Kendall Road behind the house, with poured concrete steps joining it to the back entrance. A paved walkway with poured concrete steps connects Farmcrest Avenue and the front entrance. The house is roughly centered in its lot, with modest setbacks on all sides. The rectangular building rises 1 '/2 stories from a fieldstone foundation with deeply recessed joints to a front gable roof with a saltbox extension at the front right corner, which encloses an entrance vestibule. One chimney is located on the left slope of the roof, near the front of the building and the ridgeline; another projects from the back of the right slope, also near the ridgeline. Walls are clad with wood shingles. Windows typically have 6/6 double hung windows with band molding. The facade (Farmcrest Avenue elevation) comprises, on the first floor, a triplet of casement windows at the left side, a modern bow window with casement sash positioned slightly off-center, and the entrance porch at the right. Small, paired 6/6 windows are centered in the half story. Accessed by wood steps, the entry features a single-leaf door facing Farmcrest Avenue, banded windows around its front corner, and a small six-light window at the rear, facing Kendall Road. The left side elevation has a pair of rectangular awning windows towards the front of its first floor, along with paired windows near the center. A shed dormer spans nearly the entire elevation, containing three widely spaced, 6/6 windows of varied heights in the half story. The right side (Kendall Road) elevation has a tri-partite window near the center and paired casements towards the back on the first floor, surmounted by three gabled dormers with square, 8/8 window sash. The rear elevation has a small recessed entrance at the back right corner of the building, with a shingled post, a single-leaf door facing Kendall Road, and wood steps with wrought iron railings. On the rear wall, a single-leaf basement door is set near the center, with paired windows to the right on the first floor level; paired, large awning windows are centered in the half story. Well maintained, 39 Farmcrest Avenue has lost historic integrity through significant changes in its fenestration and the addition of multiple dormers. A modest example of early 20th century suburban development, the house is notable for its front gable form with integral entry porch (exploiting the property's corner location) and its rustic masonry foundation. 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. Farmcrest Avenue was laid out between 1918 and 1922 as part of the suburbanization of southern Lexington. 39 Farmcrest Avenue appears on the 1927 Sanborn map with a small, one-story accessory building—likely a garage— in the back, near Kendall Road. (The outbuilding survived until at least 1950.) The first known occupants of the house, in 1935, were Edwin T. Sleeper, a dentist with a practice in Arlington, and his wife Helen. Edwin remained in the house through at least 1965; Helen was with him through at least 1955. Farmcrest Avenue is part of a cohesive, early 20th century subdivision created from the former Valley Field Farm, which was owned by Francis Paul Kendall. Descendant of a family that had settled in Lexington by the early 18th century, Francis Kendall Continuation sheet I