HomeMy WebLinkAboutcharles-street_0020 FORM B BUILDING Assessor's Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number
0 0 2204
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION 13/118A
MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD Town/City: Lexington
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Place: (neighborhood or village):
Photograph
- Address: 20 Charles Street
Historic Name:
Uses: Present: residential
Original: residential
T . Date of Construction: ca. 1910-27
Source: style, historic maps
Style/Form: Dutch Colonial Revival
Architect/Builder:
Exterior Material:
Foundation: fieldstone
North (left side) and west(fagade) elevations
Wall/Trim: wood clapboards and trim
Locus Map Roof- asphalt shingles
Outbuildings/Secondary Structures:
None
Major Alterations(with dates):
Replacement windows, rear addition (L 20th— E 21St c)
Condition: good
Moved: no ❑ yes ❑ Date:
Acreage: 0.12
Setting: Located on a short residential side street near the
t� main thoroughfare of Massachusetts Avenue, close to the
Arlington line. Dense hillside neighborhood with 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 20 CHARLES STREET
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
2204
❑ 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.
20 Charles Street occupies a small lot at the corner of Stevens Road. The land slopes down gently from right to left across the
site. Set at the front left corner of its parcel, the house has a minimal front setback; the yard is maintained chiefly in lawn. A
short asphalt sidewalk leads from the sidewalk to the front entrance. A paved driveway extends to the left of the house. The
building consists of a 1 '/2 story main block with a rear appendage.
The main block rises from a fieldstone foundation with deeply recessed mortar joints to a front gambrel roof with a center
chimney and a flared roof skirt joining the ends of the gambrel and separating the upper and lower floors. Walls are sheathed
with clapboards and trimmed with flat corner boards and a narrow bed molding at the eaves. Windows typically have 1/1 double
hung replacement sash with a narrow band molding. The front fagade (west elevation) contains an off-center, single-leaf door
accessed by stone steps; it is flanked by a small horizontal window to the right and two 1/1 windows to the left. Centered in the
half-story are three loosely grouped windows, comprised of a large 1/1 window flanked by a narrow 1/1 window on either side.
All three half-story windows have diamond-paned lights in their upper sash.
The symmetrical left (north side) elevation contains a tripartite window unit centered between two single windows in the outer
bays. A shed-roofed dormer with a single window projects above the back end of the gambrel roof. The irregular south (right
side) elevation of the main block features two small awning windows and a single 1/1 window towards the back. A one-story,
shed-roofed extension spans the entire length of the back elevation and projects beyond the right side of the main block. It has
a shed-roofed dormer with a single window on the right (south) side. Lined by a modern wood deck, the rear elevation of the
extension features two 1/1 windows and a bow window.
Well preserved and well maintained, 20 Charles Street is representative of modest, early 20th century suburban housing in
Lexington. The house is notable for its simple, intact massing; rustic masonry foundation; distinctive front-gambrel roof; and
diamond-paned window sash at the front fagade.
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.
Continuation sheet 2
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 20 CHARLES STREET
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
2204
The house at 20 Charles Street appears on the 1927 map with what seems to be a full-length front porch and a small accessory
building, likely a garage, at the back left corner. The first known residents at this address, in 1930, were Francis P. Stymast,
foreman in a retail ice business, his wife Sadie M. (both born in Canada), and their eight children, the oldest of whom worked as
a sales girl in a five-and-ten-cent store. Subsequent occupants included Stanley Doucette, a salesman, and his wife Pansy F.
(1945), and Milton E. Merksamer a financial officer, and his wife Jean R. (1955 and 1965). Carole R. Merksamer, a clerk-typist,
was also living here in 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 Comprehensive Cultural Resources Survey, Period and Area Summaries.
http://historicsurvey.lexingtonma.gov/index.htm Accessed Jul 23, 2015.
Lexington Directories: 1899, 1908-09, 1922, 1928, 1934, 1936, 1938, 1942.
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: 1920, 1930, 1940.
SUPPLEMENTARY IMAGES
j �I Ali II
■ � f;t
West (fagade) and south elevations
Continuation sheet 3