HomeMy WebLinkAboutberwick-road_0011 FORM B BUILDING Assessor's Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number
0 OH 2108
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION 63/48
MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD Town/City: Lexington
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Place: (neighborhood or village):
Merriam Hill
Photograph
Address: 11 Berwick Road
y
Historic Name:
Uses: Present: residential
Original: residential
Date of Construction: ca. 1918
Source: town directories
Style/Form: Craftsman
z ' Architect/Builder:
Exterior Material:
Foundation: poured concrete
Left side and front (facade) elevations Wall/Trim: wood shingles and trim
Locus Map Roof- asphalt shingles
Outbuildings/Secondary Structures:
Detached garage
`%
Major Alterations(with dates): rh
,s,.. Shed addition on left(Merriam Street) side (20
c), greenhouse addition on back elevation (L
20th — E 21 st c)
ff �a-a K `` Condition: good
m�-
Moved: no ❑ yes ❑ Date:
Acreage: 0.29
A Setting: Prominent location on Merriam Hill at
corner of Meriam Street and Berwick Road, in an
area of typically smaller houses of similar style
andP eriod.
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 11 BERWICK ROAD
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
�H 2108
❑ 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.
11 Berwick Road is set nearly in the center of a prominent corner lot that slopes up to the right side of the property. A low,
parged stone retaining wall with a brick cap lines the street edges; it features brick piers with concrete ball finials at the gravel
walkway to the front entrance. Maintained chiefly in lawn, the lot also contains foundation plantings and a paved driveway along
the right side of the house. The building consists of a 2 '/2 story, roughly L-shaped main block and a detached garage.
The large main block rises from a poured concrete foundation to an array of hip roofs with exposed rafter ends and one exterior
chimney on the left elevation. Walls are clad with wood shingles and trimmed with a plain wood fascia. Windows typically have
8/1 double-hung sash on the first floor and 6/1 sash above, with band molding and hinged louvered shutters. The fagade
(Berwick Street)elevation contains a roughly center entrance with low shingled walls surmounted by Tuscan columns and a
shed roof, accessed by broad wood steps. The entry door is offset within this porch, with a single-leaf paneled wood and glass
door. A single window on the second floor and small hip-roofed dormer are centered above the porch. Flanking this entrance
on the left is a two-story stack of porches with a hip roof, low shingled walls (which flare at the base on the second story), and
Tuscan corner columns, accessed by a single-leaf door centered on each floor. To the right of the entrance bay is a large hip-
roofed pavilion with an angled bay window on the first floor. The overhanging second story is supported on simple horizontal,
sawn brackets and contains two symmetrical windows on the second floor.
The three-bay right elevation contains two windows and a hip-roofed side porch (with low shingled walls and square posts)on
the first floor and three windows across the second story. On the left elevation, the second story overhangs the first, with
horizontal sawn brackets at the outer corners, an angled bay window towards the front of the first floor, a brick chimney that is
exterior on the first floor and then weaves its way inside the second story before rising from the roof, and a small hip-roofed
dormer centered in the main roof. The back elevation has a two-story angled bay window with a polygonal roof near the center,
a contemporary glass greenhouse addition at the first floor, a small hip-roofed dormer on the right end and a shed-roofed dormer
on its left end. A long narrow utility shed extends from the basement level of the left side elevation to Meriam Street. A large
garage stands at the back right corner of the property. Its long rectangular volume has a side gable roof, a louvered cupola with
a hip roof near the center, one two-car bay and one individual bay, wood (shingle?) siding and trim, and irregular, multi-light
windows on its rear elevations.
Well preserved and well maintained, 11 Berwick Road is a handsome example of early 20th century, upper-middle class
suburban housing in Lexington. The well-detailed building is notable for its large scale, complex and picturesque massing,
exposed rafter ends, porches, clever interior/exterior chimney, prominent corner location, and large early 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.
11 Berwick Road represents the later development of the north slope of Merriam Hill, which continued to attract upper middle-
class professionals. Although the assessors' records for this house show a construction date of 1920, the directories indicate a
house at the address as early as 1918. In 1903, much of the north slope of the hill was surveyed and subdivided for house lots
according to a plan prepared by civil engineers H. T. Whitman and Channing Howard. By 1906, however, buildings appeared
only along the perimeter roads (Adams and Grant streets).
Continuation sheet 2
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 11 BERWICK ROAD
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
�H 2108
The first known occupant of 11 Berwick Road is Herbert P. Russell (1877-1966), whose occupation is identified as a bookkeeper
at a brokerage firm (1920) and accountant in a bank (1930). He lived at this address at least from 1918 through 1930, listed here
with his wife Grace W. and daughter Olive. By 1936, the house was occupied by Clarence Collieson, who had a leather
business in Somerville, his wife Genevieve, and daughter Margaret. Subsequent occupants included Roy A. Ferguson,
identified as a supervisor, and his wife Eva (1945), and John F. Paratore, an executive, and his family, which included his wife
Evelyn and two sons (1955, 1965).
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, 1918, 1924, 1930, 1934, 1936
Lexington List of Persons: 1935, 1945, 1955, 1965.
Massachusetts Historical Commission. "MHC Reconnaissance Survey Town Report: Lexington." 1980.
U.S. Census: 1920, 1930, 1940.
U.S. Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014.
Massachusetts Historical Commission. Form A, Merriam Hill Area. Anne Grady, 2015.
Massachusetts Historical Commission. "MHC Reconnaissance Survey Town Report: Lexington." 1980.
Middlesex Registry of Deeds, South District. "Plan of Oakmount Park, Lexington Mass. (Part A)". Recorded Jul 15, 1903, 145/3
(A of 2).
Continuation sheet 3
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 11 BERWICK ROAD
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
2108
SUPPLEMENTARY IMAGES
r -
Front (facade) and right side elevations Garage: Front (facade) elevation
Continuation sheet 4