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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 19 HIBBERT STREET <br /> MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. <br /> 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 <br /> 0 2232 <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 /> 19 Hibbert Street occupies a narrow rectangular lot, nearly half of which is within the Town of Arlington. The lot slopes gently up <br /> from right to left across the site, and the building sits slightly above street level. The building is positioned on the left(southern) <br /> property line, with a narrow setback on the right side, occupied by a paved driveway, and a modest front yard, which is <br /> maintained chiefly in lawn. A low fieldstone wall with a concrete cap edges the front yard. <br /> The T-shaped building rises 2 '/2 stories to a front gable roof with an offset gabled pavilion on the facade (east elevation). <br /> Original gable returns have been blocked in on all three visible gable ends. A chimney is located on the right slope of the main <br /> roof, near the ridgeline. Walls are clad with wood shingles. Windows typically have 1/1 and 2/1 double hung sash with band <br /> molding. A hip-roofed porch wraps around the front fagade (east elevation) and part of the right side (north elevation), with a <br /> canted corner from which wood steps project and connect with the driveway. A pedimented gablet highlights the corner entry. <br /> The porch is composed of shingled half walls, decoratively turned posts, and a band of turned spindles across the top. The front <br /> facade (east elevation) has a two-story gabled pavilion comprised of an angled bay window on the first floor, with one window on <br /> each face, and a rectangular bay on the second floor, containing two symmetrical windows. The right half of the fagade has an <br /> offset, single-leaf door, one window above on the second floor, and a smaller window centered in the gable peak. <br /> The right side (north) elevation has a 2-story, gabled wing with a single window on each floor. A one-story, flat roofed <br /> appendage is just visible at the back of this wing. The left side (south)elevation has a comparable gabled wing whose first floor <br /> is cut back at the corners for an angled bay. The angled bay has one window on each face; a single window is centered above <br /> at the second story. A small fixed window is set towards the front of the first floor, on the main block. <br /> Well preserved and maintained, 19 Hibbert Street is a lively example of early 201h century, middle class suburban housing in <br /> Lexington. The house is notable for its substantial T-shaped massing, vertical proportions, manipulations of wall planes, and <br /> unusually decorative front porch. <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 /> Continuation sheet I <br />