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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 30 GRANT STREET <br /> MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. <br /> 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 <br /> 0 2123 <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 /> 30 Grant Street is located at the base of Merriam Hill, near the beginning of a main thoroughfare through East Lexington. The <br /> house is set a full story above street level with a dry-laid, fieldstone retaining wall along the street and both sides of the driveway <br /> to the right of the house. Curving stone steps lead from the driveway to the front entrance. The driveway is paved with concrete <br /> that contains an aggregate of small stones and appears to have had a grid of bluestone pavers. The building consists of a 2 '/2 <br /> story main block with a trio of appendages at the back of different shapes: octagonal, rectangular with clipped corners, and <br /> circular. Only the circular tower at the back right of the building was visible from the street during site work for this survey <br /> project. <br /> The rectangular building rises from a massive fieldstone foundation to a high hip roof with deep eaves. Walls are clad with wood <br /> shingles and trimmed with a flat fascia at the roof edge. Windows are extremely varied in size and shape, with plain flat casings. <br /> They are characteristically multi-paned and appear mostly to be casement sash. The asymmetrical fagade has two cross- <br /> gables—the larger with an angled bay window at the second floor and a semi-circular stained and leaded glass lunette in the <br /> half story; the smaller with a pair of multi-light casements—and a small hip-roofed dormer between and above them. A shed- <br /> roofed porch spans the entire first floor of the fagade, with a circular end and conical roof at the left side. It includes half-height <br /> shingled walls supporting decoratively carved posts, fieldstone piers at the cross-gabled entrance bay, and fieldstone steps. The <br /> main entrance, centered in the fagade, is shaped with a Tudor arch and has a wood paneled door with a diamond-paned glass <br /> panel at the top. <br /> The commanding right side elevation is dominated by the massive fieldstones of its fully-exposed basement level, a polygonal <br /> turret with conical roof at the second and half stories, a large cross gable towards the back, and a circular tower with conical roof <br /> anchoring the back corner. (Building permits show that the first floor of this tower was originally a screened porch.) Fenestration <br /> on this elevation is varied in size and arrangement. Two pairs of double leaf garage doors access garage space in the <br /> basement. Arched doorways in the stone foundation are located towards the back of the main block, in the circular tower, and in <br /> a landscape wall that spans between the tower and the side property line. <br /> The left side elevation was largely concealed by trees during site work for the survey project. An exterior fieldstone chimney was <br /> visible, along with a hip roof dormer in the center, and a long second floor porch with decoratively sawn flat balusters and square <br /> posts. <br /> Well maintained and well preserved, 30 Grant Street is an extraordinarily sophisticated example of the Arts & Crafts Style in <br /> Lexington. It is notable for its complex and picturesque massing, use of stone and wood shingle surfaces, integral garages, and <br /> strong landscape design. <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 /> Today's Grant Street is an accumulation of several roadways. The base of the street, between Massachusetts Avenue and <br /> Sheridan Street, appears between 1875 and 1889, when it provided convenient access to the Hayes estate on Merriam Hill. <br /> The short section between Sheridan and Hayes Lane appears between 1898 and 1906. The then-discontinuous stretch from <br /> Hayes Lane to Granny's Hill was established as part of Hayes Lane by 1853. Grant Street was extended between Granny's Hill <br /> and East Street between 1875 and 1898. By the third quarter of the 19th century, however, only a few buildings clustered near <br /> Continuation sheet I <br />