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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 15 HIBBERT STREET <br /> MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. <br /> 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 <br /> 0 2231 <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 /> 15 Hibbert Street occupies a small lot that slopes up gently from right to left across the site. The building sits above street level, <br /> with a fieldstone retaining wall surmounted by a low hedge along the sidewalk edge. Concrete steps and a concrete walkway <br /> extend from the street edge to the front entrance. The modest front and left side setbacks are maintained chiefly in lawn. The A <br /> paved driveway lined by poured concrete retaining walls extends along the right side of the house. The building consists of a 1 <br /> '/2 story main block and a full-length side addition. <br /> The rectangular main block rises above a granite foundation to a steeply pitched, front gable roof without gable returns. It has a <br /> chimney at the top of the right slope, near the ridgeline. Walls are clad with wood shingles; the shingled wall of the front gable <br /> peak appears to flare slightly above the half story. Windows typically have 1/1 double hung replacement sash with narrow band <br /> molding. The front(east) elevation of the main block contains a small, angled bay window with a hip roof and an offset entrance <br /> on the first floor, and narrow paired windows centered above. Fenestration on the bay window includes a large square picture <br /> window on the front face and a narrow double hung window on each of the angled sides. The entrance is sheltered by a wide <br /> front porch whose tapered Tuscan posts support a low hip roof. <br /> The north (right side) elevation contains a cross-gabled ell towards the back with a single 1/1 window centered in the half story. <br /> A broad one-story addition extends across the entire south (left side) of the main block, under a low shed roof. The addition has <br /> two small 1/1 windows on its east(front)fagade and two widely spaced 1/1 windows on its south (left side) elevation. <br /> 15 Hibbert Street is a very simple, very modest example of early 20th century suburban housing in Lexington. The house is <br /> notable for its flared wall surface in the front gable, side cross gable, front porch, and fieldstone retaining wall. <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 /> The small grid of streets bordered by Massachusetts Avenue, Hibbert Street, Taft Avenue, and Bowker Street represents an <br /> early area of suburban infill in East Lexington, near the Arlington town line. Immediately south of Taft Avenue is Liberty Heights <br /> (LEX.Q), a hilltop subdivision laid out by Brookline developer Jacob W. Wilbur in 1909 and developed in the teens and twenties. <br /> The growth of both these neighborhoods followed the arrival of the electric street railway on Massachusetts Avenue in 1899 and <br /> was directed at working class residents. <br /> In the area adjacent to Massachusetts Avenue known as Dexter Hillside, Hibbert and Sylvia streets, which straddle the <br /> Lexington/Arlington line, were laid out, platted, and partially developed by 1898. The only other evidence of development here at <br /> that time is the L-shaped beginning of Charles and Cherry streets, where ten house lots were laid out but vacant. By 1927, both <br /> Charles and Bowker streets extended from Massachusetts Avenue to Taft Avenue, and the western ends of Cherry Street, <br /> Stevens (then Cary) Road, and Camden (then Smythe) Street pushed a few lots eastward from Charles. Development was <br /> gradual through the 1920s and 30s and was virtually complete, with the present network of streets, by 1950. <br /> The Dexter Hillside development was conceived by Nathan Dexter Canterbury(1837-1912), who in 1895 began development of <br /> a large farm previously owned by Micajah Locke. A resident of Weymouth, Canterbury was a shoe and boot manufacturer, <br /> founded the East Weymouth Savings Bank and two Weymouth newspapers, and served as a state representative. Streets were <br /> given the middle names of Canterbury and his family. As reported by a local newspaper, <br /> Continuation sheet I <br />