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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 30 THERESA AVENUE <br /> MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. <br /> 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 <br /> 2274 <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 /> 30 Theresa Avenue occupies a flat, trapezoidal lot at the intersection of Hillcrest and Theresa avenues. Maintained chiefly in <br /> lawn, the yard has moderate front and side setbacks that contain foundation plantings, scattered shrubs and trees, and short <br /> segments of hedges. A low fieldstone retaining wall borders the gently sloping paved driveway at the west side of the parcel. A <br /> concrete walkway leads to the front entrance. The building consists of a 2 '/2 story main block with small front and rear <br /> appendages. <br /> The small, rectangular house rises from a concrete foundation to a front gable roof with no returns. Walls are clad with wood <br /> shingles. Windows typically have 6/1 or 4/1 double hung replacement sash with band molding. The front fagade (north <br /> elevation) contains a narrow one-story projection with a hip roof across most of the first floor. The eastern portion of this <br /> projection contains a tripartite window unit with a large square picture window in the center; a single-leaf door with a cross <br /> gabled pediment, brick steps, and wrought iron railing is offset on the western end. Two 6/1 windows are asymmetrically placed <br /> in the second story of the fagade, surmounted by a horizontal six-light windows centered in the half-story. <br /> The east (left side) elevation contains a triplet of windows and a set of paired windows on the first floor and two widely-spaced <br /> single windows at the second story. The west (right side) elevation has a small horizontal window at an intermediary floor level <br /> towards the front of the building, a pair of casement windows towards the rear of the first floor, and two 6/1 windows of varied <br /> heights at the second floor. A one-story addition across the rear elevation has a single-leaf doorway on the west(right) side. <br /> Well maintained and presumably largely intact, 30 Theresa Avenue is a very plain, nondescript example of early 20th century <br /> suburban housing in Lexington. <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 neighborhood centered around Bow Street and Hillcrest, Cliffe, and Rindge avenues covers a steep hillside between <br /> Massachusetts Avenue and Lowell Street along the Arlington town line. The Great Meadows and Arlington Reservoir are <br /> located to the west and east, respectively. By 1898, a very short stub of road between Mass. Avenue and the B&M Railroad <br /> tracks is labeled Bow Street. North of the tracks, it continues as a pathway to a farmhouse identified as J. A. Wilson. The 1899 <br /> directory identifies a James Wilson, farmer and market gardener, with a house off Bow, and a James A. Wilson, market <br /> gardener, with a house on Bow. The land remained undeveloped as part of the Wilson Farm until at least 1906. <br /> Most of the streets here were laid out and platted for house lots by 1927; development most likely began after 1918. <br /> Development slowly crept up the hillside through the early and mid 20th century, most densely along the grid of streets closest to <br /> Massachusetts Avenue. The Wilson farm remained in existence east of Bow Street (in the area now traversed by South Rindge <br /> Street) until at least 1950, at which time it encompassed a substantial farmhouse and greenhouse and two other large <br /> outbuildings. <br /> The area was likely developed in response to the electric street railway, which began service on Mass. Avenue in 1899. Like <br /> Liberty Heights to the south of Massachusetts Avenue (which it resembles, architecturally; LEX.Q), this neighborhood—known <br /> as Massachusetts Avenue Terrace and Arlington Heights Terrace—was laid out by Jacob W.Wilbur, a prolific Brookline <br /> developer. Wilbur typically sited his subdivisions near streetcar lines and appealed to working class residents. <br /> Continuation sheet I <br />