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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 20 NORTH HANCOCK ST. <br /> MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. <br /> 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 <br /> 2256 <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 /> 20 North Hancock Street is set on a slight skew to the street with a deep front setback. Maintained chiefly in lawn, the land <br /> slopes up gently to the street and is contained by a fieldstone retaining wall at the street edge and along the driveway. <br /> Foundation plantings and scattered trees comprise other major landscaping elements. A paved driveway occupies the left side <br /> of the parcel, and a brick walk with granite steps leads from the driveway to the front entrance. The roughly L-shaped building <br /> consists of a 2 '/2 story main block with a couple of rear appendages. <br /> The building rises from a brick foundation at the front gabled wing and a poured concrete foundation at the left side wing. Walls <br /> are clad with wood clapboards and trimmed with flat corner boards and flat belt courses between the first and second floors. <br /> Some of the belt courses are ornamented with modern dentils. Raking fascia boards on the gable ends have decoratively sawn <br /> ends and no returns. Windows are chiefly 8/8 double-hung sash on the first floor and 6/6 sash on the second floor, all with <br /> narrow band moldings. There are also a variety of picture and bay windows. The two-bay fagade of the front gable wing has an <br /> offset gabled entrance vestibule, with pilasters, a single leaf door with half-height sidelights, and a semi-circular sunburst motif <br /> over the door. The wider bay contains a large bow window at the first floor and a rectangular bay at the second floor, both with <br /> modern grouped windows. An arched window is centered in the half-story, which is clad with patterned wood shingles. <br /> The right elevation of the front wing has four asymmetrical windows on the second floor and an exterior brick chimney towards <br /> the front. A one-story shed-roofed addition fills the corner between the front gable and the perpendicular wing on the left side. <br /> The left wing contains three windows on the street-facing elevation. The gable end of this wing has a large bow window on the <br /> first floor; an overhanging second story on which is centered a large, tri-partite, multi-light picture window; and an arched window <br /> in the half-story. Barely visible from the street, a one-story garage with a gabled roof is attached to the back elevation of the <br /> house. <br /> Well-maintained but very extensively altered (the fagade and probably the entire left wing), 20 North Hancock Street is notable <br /> as a relatively large, late Victorian suburban home. More research on the original appearance of this building is recommended. <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 /> North Hancock Street is an early thoroughfare in Lexington, showing up on the 1830 map with a school located on the north side <br /> of the road,just east of its mid-point. Development was sparse throughout the 19th century, with only two houses identified here <br /> in the last half of the 20th century. Assessors' records for this house show a construction date of 1880, but this has not yet been <br /> verified by historical records. In addition, the extent of alterations to the building makes it difficult to discern original and early <br /> architectural features that would assist in determining a construction period. <br /> In 1898 and 1906, land and two buildings near today's 20 North Hancock Street are identified as owned by F. E. Gleason. The <br /> first known resident at this street address is Mrs. S. Louise Gleason, widow of Frederick E. Gleason, in 1922. Frederick E. <br /> Gleason, a farmer, is also identified as living on Hancock Street, near Bedford, in 1899 and 1906. Subsequent residents <br /> included Hobart Crocker, a builder, and his wife Eva (1934); John F. McCullough, who worked as a foreman and on the railroad, <br /> with his wife Eleanor(1936, 1945); and John J. G. McCue, a physicist, and his wife Miriam, a psychologist(1955, 1965). <br /> Continuation sheet I <br />