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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 519 LOWELL STREET <br /> MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. <br /> 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 <br /> 2243 <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 /> 519 Lowell Street occupies a front corner of a spacious lot near the intersection of two important thoroughfares, Lowell and East <br /> streets. A narrow strip of land connects the street frontage property on which the house stands to an approximately equally <br /> sized interior parcel roughly 600 feet to the south. The site containing the house is flat along the street edge and slopes <br /> significantly down to the back, behind the house. Maintained chiefly in lawn in its modest front yard and large side yard, the land <br /> also contains mature street trees at the front corners of the lot, a shrubbery hedge along the street, scattered small trees, and a <br /> broad paved driveway to the right of the house. The 2 '/2 story building consists of a simple square block. <br /> The house rises 2 '/2 stories from a raised basement with a fieldstone foundation to a high hip roof with high hip roofed dormers <br /> centered on the front and back elevations and one interior chimney. Walls are sheathed with artificial siding and trim. Windows <br /> typically have 1/1 double hung replacement sash with vinyl trim. The asymmetrical fagade contains an offset, two story angled <br /> bay window with a single window on each face at both floors and a modern, single-leaf door near the center of the fagade that is <br /> surmounted by a single window on the second story. A hip-roofed porch with Tuscan posts extends across the front and right <br /> side elevations. It has modern wood railings with square balusters and wood stairways on both elevations. (Assessor's photos <br /> show that the fagade previously had an enclosed, hip roofed sun porch only across the flat part of the fagade, south of the bay <br /> window.) <br /> The right (south) side elevation has asymmetrical fenestration, with three irregularly sized and placed windows on the second <br /> floor and a slightly off-center doorway with full height sidelights. (Assessor's photos show this elevation without a porch, and <br /> with two windows and an offset door at the first floor, and other fenestration on the second floor.) The left(north) side elevation <br /> has two widely spaced, vertically aligned windows on each floor. An exterior wood stairway and second floor deck are partially <br /> visible on the rear elevation. <br /> Well maintained, 519 Lowell Street is a typical example of early 20th century suburban housing in Lexington, although its overall <br /> character has been altered by the substitution of a wrap-around verandah for the original front porch, and significant changes to <br /> fenestration on a prominent side elevation. The building is notable for its large lot, Four Square form, hip roof dormers, and two- <br /> story bay window on the fagade. <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 /> 519 Lowell Street is located near the important crossroads of Lowell and East streets in east Lexington. Lowell Street appears <br /> to have followed a Native American trail and was developed as an important transportation corridor in the Colonial period. A <br /> new regional turnpike system radiating from Boston was established in the early 19th century; Lowell Street formed part of the <br /> Middlesex Turnpike (ca. 1806), which extended from Cambridge to Tyngsborough and the New Hampshire border. Appearing <br /> on the town maps by 1830, East Street is an early road, facilitating access to the farmland of east Lexington and connecting to <br /> the adjacent town of Woburn. This peripheral area of East Lexington remained mostly agricultural and sparsely developed <br /> through the early 20th century, however, home to commercial dairy and produce farms. <br /> At the turn of the 20th century, a small cluster of buildings appeared around Lowell and East streets. A building appears near <br /> the southeast corner of this intersection by 1898; in 1906 it was identified as N. Comeau. Construction of the present house at <br /> Continuation sheet I <br />