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Home My WebLink Aboutfern-street_0010 FORM B BUILDING Assessor's Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION 14/66/2 ❑ 2222 14/66/1 MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Town/City: Lexington Place: (neighborhood or village): Photograph East Lexington Address: 10 Fern Street(14/66/2)and 15 Pleasant Street (14/66/1) Historic Name: Uses: Present: residential (two-family) Original: residential? barn/commercial? Date of Construction: ca. 1830-60 Source: historic maps, architectural features Style/Form: No style Architect/Builder: Exterior Material: Front east; Pleasant St. and right side (north) elevations Foundation: concrete Wall/Trim: vinyl siding and trim Locus Map Roof- asphalt shingles / tOutbuildings/Secondary Structures: \ � b,P do C,Q None �� - Major Alterations (with dates): Rear additions (L 20th c) { r ' Condition: fair ' Moved: no ❑ yes ❑ Date: _ Acreage: 0.15 Setting: Located close to the intersection of Fern Street and Pleasant Street, a major cross-town thoroughfare, near the village of East Lexington. Dense, heterogeneous residential neighborhood contains buildings of varying size and scale; predominantly early to mid-20th century construction. Recorded by: Wendy Frontiero Wilson Farms store and greenhouses are across the street. 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 10 FERN ST/15 PLEASANT ST MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 0 2222 ❑ 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. 10 Fern Street occupies a trapezoidal lot spanning between Fern and Pleasant streets,just south of their intersection. Due to the significant grade level change between the higher Fern Street and lower Pleasant Street, the building rises 2 '/z stories above Pleasant Street, but only 1 '/2 stories above Fern Street. The building is set close to the center of its lot, with a high stone retaining wall paralleling Fern Street, a short distance in back (west) of the house. The Fern Street frontage contains a semi- circular paved drive bordered by planting areas with trees, shrubs, and perennials, and a vinyl privacy fence between the driveway and the building. The north (right side)setback is mostly occupied by a large paved parking area. The deep front setback is maintained in lawn and small trees; it is lined by a low retaining wall of concrete block with a brick cap. A thick band of trees borders the house on the south (left)side. The rectangular building rises 2 '/z stories from a concrete foundation to a gable roof with twin interior chimneys near the end walls; no gable returns. Walls are clad in vinyl siding and trim. Windows typically have 6/1 double hung replacement sash with vinyl trim. The ground floor of the front fagade (east elevation, facing Pleasant Street) has a slightly off-center, single-leaf center door flanked by an 8/1 window on the left and paired 6/1 windows on the right. Two widely spaced, 6/1 windows are symmetrically set on the second floor, and a 1/1 window is centered in the half story. The asymmetrical right side (north)elevation contains a center entry at grade under a low shed roof with plain wood brace. Three 6/1 windows are set to the left. The second floor of this elevation contains four 6/1 windows. Little is visible of the rear (west) elevation, facing Fern Street. It contains two closely spaced and approximately centered windows at the Fern Street level and a 1/1 window centered in the half story. The building at 10 Fern Street/l5 Pleasant Street has lost much historic integrity through the application of artificial siding and the replacement of window sash. Its proportions and massing suggest an early 19th century construction date. The building's simplicity and its proximity to and historic associations with the adjacent house at 11 Pleasant Street suggest possible agricultural/commercial functions. 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. Pleasant Street may have originated as a Native American trail. It connects the arterial roads of Massachusetts Avenue and Concord Avenue (an early 19 century turnpike) and was employed early on as an important route from Lexington center to towns to the south. Fern Street appears as an offshoot by 1853, in the form of a long, unpaved path from Pleasant Street to a building (and presumably farmland)owned by W. Gleason. 10 Fern/15 Pleasant Street clearly shares a history with the adjacent house at 11 Pleasant Street, a 2 '/2 story, side-gabled building with a five bay fagade and center entrance, which was constructed in the early 19th century. The present 10 Fern/15 Pleasant Street may have been built as an accessory structure for the main house. The 1853 map shows a pair of buildings here in the acute triangle at the fork of Fern and Pleasant streets. F. Buttrick is shown owning the property in 1875, 1889, 1898, and 1906. Little information is presently known of this individual, although an F. Buttrick, E. Buttrick, and Isaac Buttrick also owned property nearby on the north side of Fern Street during that period. Francis Continuation sheet I INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 10 FERN ST/15 PLEASANT ST MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 0 2222 Lloyd Buttrick (1864-1908) was the son of Gorham and Charlotte Buttrick; he and his wife Sarah Richards Buttrick had five children. Other potential family members who may have been affiliated with this property include the following: Charles F. Buttrick, carpenter, is listed in 1906 as residing on Fern Street; Gorham Buttrick, a produce dealer, lived not too far away on Massachusetts Avenue, near Locust Street, in 1898 and 1906; and a Francis L. Buttrick, a salesman in Boston, lived at 215 Massachusetts Avenue in East Lexington. Further research is recommended to establish the early history of this building (and the adjacent 11 Pleasant Street) and whether it had any agricultural or commercial functions to which its present utilitarian appearance can be attributed. The massing, proportions, chimneys, and north side's fenestration suggest possible early to mid 19 h century origins, either as a secondary house on the property or perhaps as a barn or other accessory structure. By 1935, the Buttrick parcel was subdivided and 15 Pleasant/10 Fern Street is identified as 13 Pleasant Street, the address it retained on the Sanborn maps through at least 1950. Identified in the town directory at 13 Pleasant Street in 1922 were Benjamin Burgess, a salesman, and his wife Jennie. No 13 Pleasant Street is listed in the 1935, 1945, 1955, or 1965 directories. Assuming that this building was considered #15 in the directories of all those years, residents of the property included the following: vacant (1935); Martha Jones, defense worker, and three younger generation Joneses, two serving in the Army and one a clerk (1945); unknown (1955; no#15 listed); Mary E. Kelly, clerk, and Anne M. Shanahan, housewife (1965). Further research is recommended to clarify 20th century residents of this building. BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES Historic maps and atlases: Hales 1830; Walling 1853; Beers 1875; Walker 1889; Stadly 1898; Walker 1906; Sanborn 1908, 1918, 1927, 1935, 1935/1950. Hudson, Charles. History of the Town of Lexington. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1913. Lexington Comprehensive Cultural Resources Survey, Period and Area Summaries. http://historicsurvey.lexingtonma.gov/index.htm Accessed Jul 23, 2015. Lexington Directories: 1899, 1906, 1908-09, 1922, 1934, 1936. Lexington List of Persons: 1935, 1945, 1955, 1965. Continuation sheet 2 INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 10 FERN ST/15 PLEASANT ST MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 2222 SUPPLEMENTARY IMAGES l µ. c Rear (west) elevation (facing Fern Street) Right side (north) and rear (west) elevations Lf• , Assessors' photograph: Front (east) elevation, facing Pleasant Street Continuation sheet 3