HomeMy WebLinkAboutedgewood-road_0030 FORM B BUILDING Assessor's Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number
0 OH 2117
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION 56/93
MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD Town/City: Lexington
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Place: (neighborhood or village):
Merriam Hill
Photograph
Address: 30 Edgewood Road
Historic Name:
Uses: Present: residential
� Original: residential
Date of Construction: ca. 1935-40
Source: town directories
Style/Form: Colonial Revival Cape
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:
_ Attached garage
5fr 100
Major Alterations (with dates):
p o 0 0 ---
-
Condition: good to excellent
■ Moved: no ❑ yes ❑ Date:
� o
Acreage: 0.23
rt
Setting: Set at the crest of a hill on a residential side
street. Surrounded mostly by early—mid 20th century
houses with similar setback, spacing, style, and scale.
Sidewalks and street trees in planting strip.
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 30 EDGEwooD ROAD
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
0 2117
❑ 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.
30 Edgewood Road occupies a modest lot on the crest of a gently curving road. The building is raised above street level with a
poured concrete retaining wall at the sidewalk edge. Maintained chiefly in lawn with foundation plantings, mature trees grow at
the right side and rear of the property. An asphalt driveway extends along the right side of the property. A fieldstone stairway
with bluestone treads, contained by a decorative metal railing, rises at the beginning of the driveway and extends to a slate
pathway that curves to the front entrance. The building consists of a 1 '/2 story main block with an enclosed sunroom on one
side and an attached garage wing on the other.
The five bay wide main block rises from a poured concrete foundation to a side gable roof with an exterior chimney on the left
side; no gable returns. Walls are clad with wood shingles and trimmed with flat frieze boards with a narrow crown molding.
Windows typically contain 6/6 double-hung sash with narrow band molding and hinged and louvered wood shutters. The eight-
light casement window sash in the sunroom extension have no trim. The fagade consists of a slightly-projecting cross-gabled
pavilion on the right side with two symmetrical windows on the first floor and one centered in its flushboarded half-story; two
windows to the left; and an approximately centered single-leaf doorway. The doorway is ornamented with fluted pilasters, a
decoratively sawn frieze board, and narrow crow molding. Two small gabled dormers with flushboard siding punctuate the front
slope of the roof.
The right side elevation of the main block has irregular fenestration, with one large and one small window on each floor. The
back slope of the roof is raised on this elevation. The garage wing attached to this elevation has a side gable roof, two individual
vehicle bays and a small 6-light horizontal window on the fagade, and two narrow dormer windows (with flushboard siding)
centered above the garage doors. The left side elevation contains an exterior chimney in the center, flanked in the half-story by
a window on each side. Set back slightly from the fagade of the main block, a one-story enclosed sunroom on the left side
elevation has a low-pitched shed roof, flushboard siding, and paired casement windows.
Well preserved and well maintained, 30 Edgewood Road is a good example of modest early-20th century suburban development
in the Colonial Revival style. It is notable for its well-proportioned and interesting massing, combination of wall surface textures,
and decorative front 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.
Edgewood Road was a turn-of-the 20th-century addition to the development of Merriam Hill, appearing between 1898 and 1906.
The street developed slowly, with only one house built along it in 1906, and two others appearing between 1918 and 1927. By
1935, however, all but one of the lots along Edgewood were finally developed. The lot that is now 30 Edgewood Road was
subdivided from its neighbor to the left (west) sometime between 1927 and 1935, but was still undeveloped in the latter year.
The town directories and U.S. census place the construction of this house between 1935 and 1940; assessors' records show a
construction date of 1938.
The first known occupants of 30 Edgewood Road were Charles R. Metchear, Jr., who worked in electrical fixtures, as an
assistant treasurer, and later salesman, his wife Perle C., and two children (one of whom, Martha, was employed as a social
worker while living here). The Metchear family occupied the house from at least 1940 through 1965.
Continuation sheet I
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 30 EDGEWOOD ROAD
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
0 2117
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. "MHC Reconnaissance Survey Town Report: Lexington." 1980.
U.S. Census: 1940.
SUPPLEMENTARY IMAGES
Front(facade) and right side elevations
Continuation sheet 2