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Home My WebLink Aboutadams-street_0045 FORM B BUILDING Assessor's Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION 63/114 0 0 2105 MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD Town/City: Lexington BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Place: (neighborhood or village): Merriam Hill Photograph Address: 45 Adams Street Historic Name: Baskin House Uses: Present: residential W Original: residential Date of Construction: ca. 1937-40 Source: assessors' records, marriage records, U.S. census Style/Form: Tudor Revival Architect/Builder: Exterior Material: Front (facade) and right side elevations Foundation: brick veneer Wall/Trim: brick with brick and wood trim Locus Map Roof- asphalt shingles Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: Yht 111pL Detached garage Major Alterations(with dates). �� $ „ ` Replacement windows (late 20 —early 21 century) Condition: excellent �� ps Moved: no ❑ yes ❑ Date: Acreage: 0.38 _ 8 Setting: Large lot at the corner of Porter Lane (a recent cul-de-sac subdivision) and the busy arterial thoroughfare of p. = Adams Street. Adjacent to the Fiske Elementary School. Heterogeneous residential development of various periods, forms, and siting are characteristic of Adams Street. Recorded by: Wendy Frontiero Organization: Lexington Historical Commission Date (month/year): September 2015 12/12 Follow Massachusetts Historical Commission Survey Manual instructions for completing this form. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 45 ADAMS STREET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 2105 ❑ 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. 45 Adams Street is offset on its lot near the corner of Adams Street, a main thoroughfare through East Lexington, and Porter Lane, a late 20th century cul-de-sac development. Maintained chiefly in lawn, the land slopes down very gently from right to left, with foundation plantings and scattered small trees and shrubs. The building consists of a compact main block with appendages at three corners and a detached garage. The roughly square main block rises 1 '/2 stories to a front gable roof with full-length shed dormers on both sides, and no gable returns. A exterior chimney is centered on the fagade, and a small interior chimney rises from the center of the ridgeline. Walls are clad with brick veneer. And trimmed with a brick soldier course at the sill level, brick sills and soldier course headers, and a narrow fascia with a slim crown molding. Windows are varied, including 6/1, and 4/1 sash, occurring singly and in pairs. The facade has a small gabled entry pavilion at the right side, which contains an arched center door, a narrow rectangular window to each side, and a circular window in the gable peak. Two single windows occupy the bay to the left of the center chimney, and a one-story shed roofed extension on the left side has paired windows on the street fagade. The right side elevation consists of a center doorway at grade with a window to each side on the first floor and three windows in the shed dormer above. The left side elevation features the shed roofed extension with exposed rafter ends and paired windows toward the front, a porch towards the rear, and two symmetrical windows in the shed dormer. The rear elevation is barely visible from a public way, but contains a steeply gable one-story pavilion echoing the front entry, with a window centered in its gable peak. The complementary garage is 1 '/z stories high with brick veneer and trim and a front gable roof. Two individual garage bays on the fagade have brick headers and are surmounted by a 6/1 window in the gable peak. The right side elevation has two symmetrical 6/1 windows. Well maintained and preserved, 45 Adams Street is an excellent example of modest and affordable suburban housing in the distinctive Tudor Revival style. It is notable for its brick veneer and trim, lively massing, unusual front entrance pavilion, and early/original garage. 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. 45 Adams Street represents Lexington's transition from an agricultural economy to a residential suburb in the early 20th century. Assessors' records for this house show a construction date of 1937, which is corroborated by historical records. William John Baskin and Frances May Porter were married in 1937 and shown living at this address in the 1940 census. Together they had three children, William J. James E., and Ruth Francis Baskin. The land was once part of the Amos Locke farm, which was established in the mid-19th century. The farmland was subsequently sold to Sidney Butterfield, George F. Chapman, William Prior, Irving Johnson, and William Porter. Porter and his brother-in-law Matthew Wilson continued to operate the farm, raising market vegetables and erecting greenhouses along East Street(which are shown on the 1935 Sanborn map). "In the 1930s the Porters began to sell off small parcels of the farm—first, a few acres for a bird sanctuary, now owned by the town, then the land for the house now at 45 Adams St., built by the Porters' daughter May Continuation sheet 2 INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 45 ADAMS STREET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 �H 2105 and her husband John Baskin. After World War II the farm was completely subdivided and sold off..." (LEX.706) Porter Lane was laid out and developed with large single-family houses in 2000. The Baskin family occupied the house at least through 1965. In 1945 the property is identified as occupied by W. John Baskin, a market gardener, and his wife Frances M. The 1935 Sanborn atlas shows three greenhouses owned by John Baskin adjacent to the Porter&Wilson greenhouses on East Street, near Adams. By 1955, however, Baskin is identified as William J. and in the real estate business. By 1965, Frances May Baskin was living here with her son James E. Baskin, a student, and Ernest O'Connor, a young truck driver. Mrs. Baskin continued to live in the house until her death in 2012. BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES Historic maps and atlases: Walling 1853; Beers 1875; Walker 1889; Stadly 1898; Walker 1906; Sanborn 1908, 1918, 1927, 1935, 1935/1950. Lexington Directories, 1899, 1908-09, 1922, 1934, 1936 Lexington List of Persons, 1935, 1945, 1955, 1965. Massachusetts Historical Commission. Form B for 43 Adams Street, LEX.706 Massachusetts Historical Commission. "MHC Reconnaissance Survey Town Report: Lexington." 1980. Ancestry.com. United States Obituary Collection [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006. Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, Marriage Index, 1901-1955 and 1966-1970 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013. Continuation sheet 3 INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 45 ADAMS STREET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 2105 SUPPLEMENTARY IMAGES rr j rr r 'T Left side and front (facade) elevations Front (facade) and right side elevations mum- Garage: tiGarage: Front (facade) elevation Continuation sheet 4