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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON is OAKMOUNT CIRCLE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 2159 ❑ 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. 18 Oakmount Circle occupies a very large, hilltop lot that slopes down from the house on all sides, affording long views of the countryside from the back. The building is set well back from the street, which is lined with mature street trees. A band of large irregular stones supports the base of the slope directly in front of the house along the edge of the road. Mature trees and shrubs, including many ornamental plantings, compose the formal landscaping of the site, complemented by a large flat lawn area to the left of the house. A paved, semicircular driveway spans the front yard, passing through a porte cochere at the main front entrance. At the far left of the site, a stout, low fieldstone wall lines the street edge in front of a rectangular lawn. The paved road turns to packed earth and gravel as it slopes down and to the right of the house, around the pond in the center of this loop road. The residence consists of a series of three rambling rectangular blocks, set at angles to each other. The sections rise 1 '/2 to 2 stories to gable roofs with plain flat fascia; cross gables and dormers ornament the roofline. Walls are typically clad with stucco, while roofs are clad with slate shingles. (The first story of the main, center block is faced with fieldstone veneer.) Three chimneys include an exterior fieldstone chimney rising from the front of the left wing and two exterior brick chimneys on the end walls of the center block. Windows are varied in size, type, and placement. Most common are four-light, individual casement windows and six-light casement sash in groups of two or three. The 1 '/2 story high, left wing of the house displays banded 4-light windows on the first floor, with a recessed entry at the right end of its facade. The second floor contains an offset cross gable with an exterior fieldstone chimney flanked by a four-light windows on each side and a small gabled dormer to the right. On the 2-story high center block, a large, offset cross-gable has a tripartite window with a pedimented lintel surmounting a porte cochere, whose steep gable roof is angled at the outer end and supported by rectangular posts and exposed rafters. The main entrance door here comprises a single-leaf door with full-height sidelights and a transom. To the right of the cross gable, the second floor of the center block slightly overhangs the first floor; it contains two pairs of casement windows on the second floor and a tripartite unit on the first floor. The 1 '/z story high, right wing of the house is only one room wide, with a wood belt course between its first and half stories, single and grouped casement windows, and an end gable dominated by two vertically-aligned tripartite units of casement and transom windows, the upper set topped by a pedimented lintel. Much of the house is not easily visible from the street. A large rear deck with a modern wood balustrade extends from the first floor of the central block. No outbuildings are visible from the road. 18 Oakmount Circle is excellently maintained, and its landscaping appears to be a professionally-designed, original or early component of the site. The house has experienced major alterations in the last 25 years, and much of its original or early architectural character is disguised. (Building permit records from 1990 identify renovations valued at$400,000, including an expanded and re-built porte cochere. Photographs show a 2 '/2 story main block composed of fieldstone veneer at the first floor, stucco and half-timbering above, single and grouped double-hung windows, a cross-gabled fagade pavilion, a porte cochere with stucco and half-timbering in its flat gable end, and a one-story, enclosed sun porch on the far right end.) The property is distinguished by its hilltop location, its grandly picturesque landscaping, and the large scale and energetic massing of the house. HISTORICAL NARRATIVE Continuation sheet I