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Home My WebLink Aboutbowker-street_0022 FORM B BUILDING Assessor's Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number 0 0 2197 MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION 13/283C MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD Town/City: Lexington BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Place: (neighborhood or village): Photograph Address: 22 Bowker Street Historic Name: _ = Uses: Present: residential = - Original: residential Date of Construction: ca. 1915-27 t ! Y Source: style, historic maps I Style/Form: Dutch Colonial Revival Architect/Builder: Exterior Material: West (facade)and south (right side) elevations Foundation: fieldstone, concrete Wall/Trim: wood clapboards and trim Locus Map Roof: asphalt shingles Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: None Major Alterations : (with dates) Side addition (L 20th c) " 41 ' Condition: good 5 A ° Moved: no ❑ yes ❑ Date: Acreage: 0.11 Setting: Located on a short side street near the main �6 • pq 'f. �� thoroughfare of Massachusetts Avenue, close to the • `� Arlington line. Dense residential neighborhood with • �,� �f�� _ buildings of varying size and scale and predominantly early to mid-20th c construction. 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 22 BOWKER STREET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 2197 ❑ 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. 22 Bowker Street occupies a small lot that slopes down steeply from right to left. The house is set at the right front corner of the lot, with a small front setback and minimal setback on the right side. The yard is maintained chiefly in lawn, with foundation plantings and scattered shrubs. A brick walkway leads to the main entrance, with a short brick stairway. A paved driveway extends along the left side of the house. The building consists of a two-story main block with a rear. The rectangular main block rises from a fieldstone foundation to a front gambrel roof with gambrel returns and a center chimney. Walls are clad with wood clapboards and trimmed with plain flat sill boards, corner boards, and fascia. Windows typically have 1/1 double hung sash and flat casings. Spanning the first floor of the fagade, a one-story porch consists of Tuscan columns, a hip roof, and turned balusters. Behind, an offset, single-leaf door is flanked by one large window on the right and a smaller window on the left. Two windows are centered above in the second floor. The south (right side) elevation of the main block contains two symmetrical 1/1 windows on the first floor and a half story dormer with a hip roof and a single 1/1 window. The north (left side) elevation of the main block contains one 1/1 window towards the front, paired short windows towards the back, and a small nearly square window at a mid-story height. A large, one-story addition projects from the back left corner of the house. Rising from a concrete foundation to a long shed roof, it contains a wide bay window and off-set, single-leaf door on its front elevation and widely spaced single windows on its left side elevation. Well preserved and well maintained, 22 Bowker Street is representative of modest, early 20th century infill housing in Lexington. The house is notable for its intact massing, gambrel roof and gambrel returns, hip roofed dormer, and front porch. 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. The small grid of streets bordered by Massachusetts Avenue, Hibbert Street, Taft Avenue, and Bowker Street represents an early area of suburban infill in East Lexington, near the Arlington town line. Immediately south of Taft Avenue is Liberty Heights (LEX.Q), a hilltop subdivision laid out by Brookline developer Jacob W. Wilbur in 1909 and developed in the teens and twenties. The growth of both these neighborhoods followed the arrival of the electric street railway on Massachusetts Avenue in 1899 and was directed at working class residents. In the area adjacent to Massachusetts Avenue known as Dexter Hillside, Hibbert and Sylvia streets, which straddle the Lexington/Arlington line, were laid out, platted, and partially developed by 1898. The only other evidence of development here at that time is the L-shaped beginning of Charles and Cherry streets, where ten house lots were laid out but vacant. By 1927, both Charles and Bowker streets extended from Massachusetts Avenue to Taft Avenue, and the western ends of Cherry Street, Stevens (then Cary) Road, and Camden (then Smythe) Street pushed a few lots eastward from Charles. Development was gradual through the 1920s and 30s, and was virtually complete, with the present network of streets, by 1950. The 1922 directory identifies four households on Bowker Street, none with street numbers. They include a carpenter, "state agent," post office clerk, mason, and chauffeur. The house at 22 Bowker Street appears on the 1927 map, facing the intersection of the newly extended Hillside Avenue. The first known residents at this address, in 1933, are Lawrence Emil Lassen, a real estate salesman who worked in downtown Boston, and his wife Effie. (They were married the previous year and Continuation sheet 2 INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 22 BOWKER STREET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 2197 moved here 1932-33.) Residing here from at least 1945 through 1965 were Dudley H. Chute, an electrical engineer, and his wife Mary L. In 1945, Mary C. Lang, a practical nurse, was also living here. BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, Marriage Index, 1901-1955 and 1966-1970 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013. Original data: Department of Public Health, Registry of Vital Records and Statistics. Massachusetts Vital Records Index to Marriages [1916-1970]. Volumes 76-166, 192—207. Facsimile edition. Boston, MA: New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, Massachusetts. Boston Directories: 1931, 1933, 1934, 1936. Historic maps and atlases: Walling 1853; Beers 1875; Walker 1889; Stadly 1898; Walker 1906; Sanborn 1908, 1918, 1927, 1935, 1935/1950. Lexington Comprehensive Cultural Resources Survey, Period and Area Summaries. http://historicsurvey.lexingtonma.gov/index.htm Accessed Jul 23, 2015. Lexington Directories: 1899, 1908-09, 1922, 1934, 1936. Lexington List of Persons: 1935, 1945, 1955, 1965. Massachusetts Historical Commission. "MHC Reconnaissance Survey Town Report: Lexington." 1980. . Form A— Liberty Heights, LEX.Q. Prepared by Anne Grady and Nancy Seasholes, 1984 and 2001. U.S. Census: 1910, 1920, 1930. SUPPLEMENTARY IMAGES �I r- 1 North (left side) and west(fagade) elevations Continuation sheet 3