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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON is VINE BROOK RD. MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 2279 ❑ Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. ff checked,you must attach a completed National Register Criteria Statementform. 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. 15 Vine Brook Road occupies a small but relatively deep lot, with narrow side setbacks and a modest setback from the street. Maintained chiefly in lawn, the front yard is flat, and the land slopes down gently towards the back of the site. Foundation plantings, low hedges at the side property lines, and scattered small trees characterize the landscaping. A straight paved driveway extends down the left side of the house, while a brick-paved walk leads from the street to the front entrance. The building consists of a 2 story main block and a 1 '/2 story rear addition. The three by two bay main block rises from a raised basement to a side gambrel roof with no gambrel returns. The fieldstone foundation has deeply recessed joints. A long shed dormer extends nearly the full length of the facade. An exterior chimney rises along the right side elevation, and an off-center interior chimney rises from the back slope of the roof. Another exterior chimney is centered on the back wall of the rear addition. Walls are sheathed with wood clapboards and trimmed with plain sill boards and corner boards. Windows are typically 6/1 double hung replacement sash with narrow band molding. Louvered wood shutters are mounted on hinges and secured with S-shaped catches. The gabled and pedimented roof of a tall, narrow entry portico (a later addition) is supported on slender Tuscan posts; it is centered between paired windows to the left and a shallow, modern bay window to the right. In the dormer, a small center window is flanked by paired windows to each side. The front portico is accessed by fieldstone steps that have slate treads and wood railings with square balusters. The left side elevation of the main block contains a shallow rectangular projection with a single window towards the front and a pair of casement windows towards the back of the first floor, and two widely spaced windows above. The right side elevation of the main block has a center exterior chimney flanked by one window on each side on each floor. The rear addition extends across nearly the full width of the main block, with a gambrel roof surmounted by nearly full-length shed dormers on each side. Visible windows are mostly single. The fully exposed basement at the left side of the addition contains an offset entrance with a single-leaf door and a bracketed and pedimented hood. Spanning the back of the addition is a flat roofed porch with square posts and square balusters at the railings on both the first and second floor. 15 Vine Brook Road is a typical, well-crafted example of early 20th century suburban housing in Lexington. It is notable for its comfortable proportions, uncommon gambrel roof, window shutters, and the rustic stonework of its foundation. 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. 15 Vine Brook Road represents the early period of suburbanization in Lexington, in which infill development responded to the arrival of street railway service along Massachusetts in the first decade of the 20th century. Vine Brook Road appears to have been laid out, and development initiated, between 1906 and 1918. The street traversed previously open land through which the eponymous Vine Brook runs before it crosses Massachusetts Avenue. The 1922 directory indicates only three buildings on the whole of Vine Brook Road. By 1935, the entire north (Massachusetts Ave.) side of the road and the south half nearest to Waltham Street were developed. Continuation sheet I