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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON s HIBBERT STREET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 2230 ❑ 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. 5 Hibbert Street occupies a modest hillside lot that slopes up steeply from right to left across the property. The house is offset to the right side of the parcel, with modest side and front setbacks and a broad, paved parking area on the left side. A timber retaining wall borders the sidewalk edge, topped by a vinyl fence around the small front lawn. A high, solid vinyl fence lines the end of the parking area. A brick walkway leads from the driveway to the front door adjacent to the base of the house. Mature trees and lawn occupy the right side yard. The building consists of a 1 '/2 to 2 '/2 story main block with a large side addition. The rectangular main block has a complex roof line, featuring a 1 '/2 story section with a very high hip roof and 2 '/2 story gabled ells on its southern section. Walls are sheathed in vinyl siding and trim. The base of the second story walls flare very slightly above the first story, separated by a flat band course. Windows typically have 6/6 double hung replacement sash. The front facade (east elevation) has a full-length front porch with Tuscan columns supporting a low hip roof. A single-leaf, off-center door is flanked by an 8-light window with semi-circular fanlight on the right and two 6/6 windows on the left. A hip roof dormer is centered over the doorway and displays a large Queen Anne window (a large center pane ringed by a band of small panes on the perimeter). The left half of the elevation contains a prominent, front gabled ell with a large tripartite window on the second floor, a flared roof skirt forming a pediment effect at the gable peak, and a small, pentagonal lunette in the half story. The north (right side) elevation has a fully exposed basement and four 6/6 windows above. The south (left side) elevation has one window bay towards the front, with one window on each floor, and a 2 '/2 story, cross-gabled ell towards the back, with a short angled wall facing the street that contains one window on each floor. Most of the south elevation of the side ell is obscured by an abutting, two-story addition with a high hip roof. The front fagade (east elevation)of the addition has two windows on each floor. Although well maintained, 5 Hibbert Street has lost significant architectural integrity through the application of artificial siding and the loss of original trim and textures. Nonetheless, it still presents a significant representation of turn of the century, middle class suburban housing in Lexington. The house is notable for its bold massing, picturesque roof edge, unusual variety of fenestration, and prominent front porch. 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. The small grid of streets bordered by Massachusetts Avenue, Hibbert Street, Taft Avenue, and Bowker Street represents an early area of suburban infill in East Lexington, near the Arlington town line. Immediately south of Taft Avenue is Liberty Heights (LEX.Q), a hilltop subdivision laid out by Brookline developer Jacob W. Wilbur in 1909 and developed in the teens and twenties. The growth of both these neighborhoods followed the arrival of the electric street railway on Massachusetts Avenue in 1899 and was directed at working class residents. In the area adjacent to Massachusetts Avenue known as Dexter Hillside, Hibbert and Sylvia streets, which straddle the Lexington/Arlington line, were laid out, platted, and partially developed by 1898. The only other evidence of development here at that time is the L-shaped beginning of Charles and Cherry streets, where ten house lots were laid out but vacant. By 1927, both Charles and Bowker streets extended from Massachusetts Avenue to Taft Avenue, and the western ends of Cherry Street, Stevens (then Cary) Road, and Camden (then Smythe) Street pushed a few lots eastward from Charles. Development was gradual through the 1920s and 30s and was virtually complete, with the present network of streets, by 1950. Continuation sheet I