HomeMy WebLinkAboutadams-street_0042 FORM B - BUILDING
Assessor's Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION 10063000107 Boston N. 704, 705
MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD Town Lexington
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Place (neighborhood or village)
II I
Address 42 Adams St.
illi —
910
dl Historic Name David Simonds House/Maplemere
Farm/Chiesa Farm
" 9s -
�ni �� M Ij1[ l� iii Uses: Present Residential
Original Residential
' I Date of Construction 1802-1830 (range)
Source Deeds, Lexington Valuation lists
Style/Form Federal with later additions
Architect/Builder
Exterior Material:
Foundation Fieldstone
I , to
Wall/Trim Wood clapboard
.i
Roof Asphalt Shingle
Outbuildings/Secondary Structures Barn with attached
lig carriage house
1
Major Alterations (with dates)
Front, side, and rear additions (dates unknown)
Condition Good
Moved ® no ❑ yes Date
A Acreage 0.7 A.
STREET
Setting Set back from busy residential street in
Recorded by Nancy S. Seasholes neighborhood of 19th-and early 20th-century houses with
20th-century infill;backs onto open land
Organization Lexington Historical Commission
Date (month/year) January 1998
Follow Massachusetts Historical Commission Survey Manual instructions for completing this form.
BUILDING FORM
ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION ❑ see continuation sheet
Describe architectural features. Evaluate the characteristics of this building in terms of other buildings within the community.
The Chiesa farmhouse (MHC#704) is one of the few l9th-century farmhouses in Lexington that still has some associated farm
outbuildings and land, although in this case the land is now owned by the town as a conservation area. The original part of the
house may have been a five-by-two bay,two-story Federal with a hip roof (this section now has a front side chimney). To the
original house has then been added a front two-story gable-roofed addition with a ridge chimney, a side two-story addition with a
flat roof, and, at the rear, a two-story gabled-roofed addition, a two-story hip-roofed addition with a chimney, and a small one-
story hip-roofed addition. The main entry,now enclosed and covered by a porch supported with square pilastered posts, is in the
reentrant angle and the windows are 6/6 double hung sash. The large front-gabled barn(MHC#705)adjacent to the house is of
post and beam construction. It is clad with wood clapboards, has transom lights over the large door, and a shed-roofed extension
on the north end. The side-gabled two-car garage attached to the south end is a converted carriage house.
HISTORICAL NARRATIVE ® see continuation sheet
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.
It is not clear when the original part of the Chiesa farmhouse was built. It is on what was described in deeds as the"Locke Land,"
presumably because it had been acquired from the Locke family, and was owned in the early 1840s by Nathan Simonds (b. 1816),
son of David Simonds (1771-1835). The house was probably built by David Simonds,who in 1802 acquired a nine-acre parcel
that had once belonged to the Lockes. But the assessed value of David's real estate only increased from$900 in 1801 to$1100 in
1802 and$1200 in 1803, most of it probably because of the newly-acquired land and not enough to indicate a new house, and the
Direct Tax of 1798 indicates that David Simonds already had a house in 1798. David Simonds bought an adjoining eight-acre
parcel from the Lockes in 1830,but the Lexington assessors' records do not indicate that he built a new house on it. These
records do show,however, that Nathan, who inherited the property after his father's death, put an addition on the existing house in
1841. In 1845 Nathan transferred the property to his father-in-law, Schuyler Parks of Lincoln, and then reportedly moved to
California. In 1867 the property was acquired by a George R. Phelps,who apparently improved the house, for its assessment
increased from$600 in 1868 to$1600 in 1872. In 1897 the farm was acquired by the mother of Charles H. Bugbee,who served
as a Lexington assessor in 1911, and it was evidently he that named it Maplemere Farm. In 1905 the Lexington Minute-man
noted: "A magnificent bunch of dahlias, of numerous varieties,we admired the other day,were culled from the gardens of
Maplemere Farm on Adams Street,the home of Charles H. Bugbee."
BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES ® see continuation sheet
John Chiesa, personal communication 1998.
Direct Tax of 1798. Microfilm. Cary Library, Lexington, MA.
Hudson, Charles. History of the Town of Lexington. Revised and continued to 1912 by the Lexington Historical Society.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1913. 2: 625.
Lexington Valuation Lists. 1795-1845, 1868, 1872.
Middlesex Registry of Deeds. Deeds. 146: 419; 310: 322; 436: 490; 774: 368; 1003: 421; 2594: 230; 4375: 237.
❑ Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. If checked,you must attach a completed National
Register Criteria Statement form.
INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET Town Property Address
Lexington 42 Adams St.
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD 704, 705
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
HISTORICAL NARRATIVE (continued)
In 1920 Maplemere Farm was purchased by Giovanni (John) D. Chiesa. John Chiesa had been born in Boston's North End
in 1880 and, with his father Andrew, had established the A&J Chiesa grocery store there. He also worked as a motorman
for the Boston Street Railway Company,whose electric trolleys began service to Lexington in 1900. In 1913 John Chiesa
and his wife bought land in Arlington but, drawn to Lexington by the wide open land he had seen and liked when a
motorman, acquired Maplemere Farm in 1920. The Chiesas bought about 20 cows and ran a dairy farm, selling the milk to
others dairies in town,which pasteurized, bottled, and delivered it in the Lexington area. John Chiesa Jr. took over the farm
in 1944 before his father's death in 1947. John Jr. continued dairy farming into the 1960s and then began to board horses.
He also ran a small market garden business and made jelly,wine, and cider from the farm's grapes and apples. In 1976
John Chiesa sold 9.25 acres to the town for conservation land and in 1985 another 13 acres with the condition that he could
remain on the farm during his lifetime.
BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES (continued)
Sileo, Thomas P.Historical Guide to Open Space in Lexington. Lexington, Mass.: Thomas P. Sileo, 1995. 116-21.
"Chiesa Farm: A dream, reality, changes." Lexington Minute-man, 26 October 1995.
Notes on the Chiesa Farmhouse. In possession of Thomas P. Sileo, Chelmsford, MA.
Roll#7,Negative#28