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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 16 MIDDLE STREET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 0 2255 ❑ 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. 16 Middle Street occupies a long, thin lot with modest front and side setbacks. Maintained chiefly in lawn, the land slopes down from the street and has a mature street tree at the street edge. A straight paved walkway extends from the street to the front entrance, and a narrow paved driveway lines the left side of the house. The building consists of a rectangular main block with a rear addition and a detached garage with its own rear addition The small main block rises from a poured concrete foundation with rubble above to a front gable roof with exposed rafter ends. A wide roof skirt across the front forms a pediment and encloses a sun porch. The porch is supported on brick piers and accessed by poured concrete steps. Walls are sheathed with aluminum siding. Windows typically have 1/1 double-hung replacement sash with narrow band molding. The front fagade has paired windows and an off-center, single leaf door with narrow sidelights. Inside on the main block facade, an off-center single-leaf door has paired windows to the right and a single window on the left. Small paired windows are centered in the half story of the main block. The left side elevation has paired windows at the side of the sun porch and, on the main block, two single windows of varied sizes and a set of paired windows towards the back. A tall, shed-roofed dormer has exposed rafter ends and no visible windows. The right side elevation has paired windows at the side of the sun porch, three single windows on the main block (including a shorter one in the middle), and a high, shed-roofed dormer with exposed rafter ends and paired windows on its front face. A small rear addition at the back right corner of the main block contains one story under a shed roof. Two pairs of windows (possibly casements or sliders)occupy its right side elevation, which appears to be sheathed in plywood to the sides and above the windows and wood panels below. A free-standing garage stands behind and to the left of the house. The small original structure has a front gable roof without returns and one vehicle bay within its wood shingled walls. A significant addition behind the garage and projecting to the right of it is also one story high. Its right side elevation contains a single-leaf pedestrian door and a picture window unit. Well maintained, 16 Middle Street has lost some historic integrity from the application of artificial siding. The house is representative of modest, affordable suburban housing in outlying areas of Lexington during the early 201h century, and contributes to a highly intact streetscape of that period. 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. 16 Middle Street and its surrounding streetscape are an excellent example of the early 20th century suburbanization of Lexington. Marrett Road was established by the early 18th century as a secondary radial highway from the center of Lexington to surrounding towns. Present-day Marrett Road between Massachusetts Avenue and Spring Street was known as Middle Street until at least the early 20th century, and the area was primarily agricultural up until that time. New transportation systems established in the early 20th century opened up large areas of rural land in Lexington for residential and commercial development. Street railway service began in Lexington in 1900 (including a railway line down Waltham Street by 1906), replaced by bus lines in 1924. Two state roadways were designated in the town, including Marrett and Middle streets as the Route 2A bypass in the 1920s, and parts of Mass. Ave., Woburn Street, and Waltham Street as components of an early Route 128 in the 1920s and 30s. By 1921, 35 new residential subdivisions were being developed in Lexington. Small Continuation sheet I