HomeMy WebLinkAboutbelfry-terrace_0001-0003 FORM B BUILDING Assessor's Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number
0 0 2189
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION 49/162
MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD Town/City: Lexington
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Place: (neighborhood or village):
Town Center
Photograph
Address: 1-3 Belfry Terrace
Historic Name:
Uses: Present: residential
Original: residential
Date of Construction: ca. 1922-1930
—
Source: town directories and style
Style/Form: Craftsman
Architect/Builder:
Exterior Material:
Foundation: concrete block
Left side and front (facade) elevations Wall/Trim: wood shingles and trim
Locus Map Roof: asphalt shingles
Outbuildings/Secondary Structures:
None
a /
Major Alterations(with dates):
Replacement windows (late 20th—early 21St c)
1_=
Condition: good
4W Moved: no ❑ yes ❑ Date:
- Acreage: 0.16
1 Setting: Located on corner of Forest Street, a busy cross
street, and quiet cul-de-sac of Belfry Terrace, near the
$ Hancock School. Heterogeneous residential area with
'* mostly single-family houses from the early 19th through mid
.0. 20th C.
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 1-3 BELFRY TERRACE
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
2189
❑ 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.
1-3 Belfry Terrace occupies a small corner lot, on which the land slopes up to the house from both street frontages. There are
modest setbacks on all sides of the house. Maintained chiefly in lawn, the property also contains a concrete walkway and steps
walkway from Belfry Terrace to the main entrance and a paved parking area at the Forest Street side. A low, parged retaining
wall with scored joints extends along most of the Forest Street frontage. The roughly L-shaped building consists of a broad front
facade and a slightly narrower rear wing.
The building rises 2 '/2 stories from a decorative concrete block foundation (in which the blocks are formed to look like cut stone)
to a series of gabled roofs with exposed rafter ends. The raised basement is fully exposed under the gabled end wall facing
Forest Street, and accommodates a pair of single bay garage doors there. Walls are clad in wood shingles, and the base of the
second story flares out slightly above the first floor. Windows typically have 6/1 double hung replacement sash with narrow band
molding. Two chimneys rise from the interior of the house, one on the front slope of the Belfry Terrace fagade and one on the
Forest Street slope of the rear wing.
On the main, Belfry Terrace fagade, a large pedimented gable surmounts a shallow rectangular bay window on one side and an
offset entrance. The bay window has a triplet of windows on each floor. The enclosed entrance vestibule has a gabled roof with
exposed rafter ends and horizontal beams with shaped ends and a shingled tympanum. Its side-by-side doors (original or early
with wood and glass panels) are accessed by broad wood steps having wood railings with square balusters. To the right of the
fagade gable, each floor has a bay of paired windows. The skirted base of the pedimented gable frames a pair of windows in the
tympanum.
The left side elevation of the house is asymmetrically composed, with two pairs of windows on each floor flanking a small center
window towards the back of this elevation. A single leaf entrance is located towards the front, along with an offset gabled
dormer with a small horizontal casement window in the center. On the right(Forest Street) side of the building, a cross-gabled
extension of the front fagade contains two individual garage bays at the basement level, a triplet of windows on each of the two
floors above, and a skirted base on the pedimented gable end.
The rear wing of the house has irregular fenestration consisting of paired and single windows along Forest Street. Two stacked,
one by two bay porches on the back of the wing are composed of a shallow pitched roof with exposed joists, square wood posts,
and modern wood railings with square balusters. Single leaf doors access both porches. Paired windows are set above the
porches at the attic level.
Well preserved and well maintained, 1-3 Belfry is a good example of middle-class, two-family housing in Lexington center and
represents an uncommon use of two-family construction in its neighborhood. Notable features include the building's prominent
location, imposing facade, pedimented gables, and nicely detailed main entrance.
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.
Belfry Terrace represents the early expansion of modest, affordable suburban housing in Lexington's town center. Assessors'
records for this house show a construction date of 1897, although historic records suggest it was built between 1922 and 1930.
The undeveloped land now occupied by the residential enclave of Belfry Terrace is labeled "Belfry Hill" in the 1898 atlas and was
Continuation sheet 2
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 1-3 BELFRY TERRACE
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
2189
owned by the Rindge Estate. (No Rindges are named at adjacent parcels.) The street first appears in the records between
1922 and 1930. In the latter year, this house was rented by Carrie L. Pilkington, her sister Florence Baldwin, and her niece
Althea Baldwin (no occupations known) and by the family of Ralph C. Shorey, a salesman in the chemical business, which
included his wife Catherine M. and son Ralph C. In 1935 the building was occupied by Sherman K. Hardy(a salesman in the
chemical industry) and his wife Vera B., and Edith B. Litchfield, who was retired. Edith Litchfield is identified as living in this
house as early as 1932.
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, 1930, 1934, 1936
Lexington List of Persons: 1935, 1945, 1955, 1965.
Massachusetts Historical Commission. "MHC Reconnaissance Survey Town Report: Lexington." 1980.
U.S. Census: 1930, 1940.
SUPPLEMENTARY IMAGES
r
Front(facade)and right side elevations Right side and back elevations
Continuation sheet 3