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Home My WebLink Aboutgrant-place_0011 FORM B BUILDING Assessor's Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION 48/112 0 0 2122 MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD Town/City: Lexington BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Place: (neighborhood or village): Lexington Center Photograph Address: 11 Grant Place Historic Name: Uses: Present: residential Original: residential 00 Date of Construction: ca. 1890s _ Source: assessors' records, style _. . low Style/Form: no style/Queen Anne Architect/Builder: Exterior Material: Foundation: not visible Front(facade)and right side elevations Wall/Trim: wood clapboards and trim Locus Map Roof- asphalt shingles .� stiuu-an o Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: <" None 7 Major Alterations (with dates): 7 Fenestration, terrace (E 20 c?), front and side additions (unknown) 15 CP b-,■ Condition: good to fair •• a � �a �* Moved: no ❑ yes ❑ Date: Acreage: 0.14 Setting: Small residential enclave on a dead-end street, 4&-107 ,0 4'i parallel to former railroad tracks. Typically small-scale i , s,sso 4Bhouses of widely varied periods, styles, forms, and siting. 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 I 1 GRANT PLACE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 0 2122 ❑ 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 Grant Place occupies a long narrow lot that spans most of the north side of Grant Place and slopes up gradually from the street. The portions of the lot in front of and to the right of the house are maintained chiefly in lawn, with a paved and gravel driveway at the right side of the house. The western portion of the site is wooded. The building consists of a 2'/2 story main block and one-story additions on each side. The three by two bay main block rises to a side gable roof with a small interior chimney at the center of the ridgeline and a small exterior chimney at the back left corner of the main block. Walls are clad with wood clapboards and trimmed with plain corner boards and a narrow flat fascia with a bed molding. Windows typically have 6/6 double hung sash with plain flat casings. The front fagade has an off-center, shallow jog, and the right gable end has two raking eaves at the front of the building, indicating a forward expansion of the building at some point. Fenestration on the fagade consists of two widely spaced, paired windows on the first floor and three single windows across the second floor. Flush with the front wall of the main block, a small entry vestibule is appended to the right side. It contains a side gable roof, offset door and one window on the fagade, and a single window on the right side. Both side elevations have a plain flat belt course above the second floor and patterned wood shingles in the half-story. The right side elevation has two windows on the second story. A one-story shed roofed addition spans the entire width of the left elevation, with a French door and one window on its facade and an offset door and two 6/6 windows on its left side. Two symmetrical 6/6 windows are set on the second floor of the main block, surmounted by a horizontal, six-light window in the half- story. A raised terrace extends across the entire fagade of the building, comprising a cobblestone foundation, poured concrete steps with cobblestone cheek walls, and a contemporary wood railing. A straight paved walkway leads from the street to the steps at the main entrance. 11 Grant Place is a quirky vernacular building that appears to have evolved ad hoc. The building is notable for its cobblestone terrace, patterned shingles in the gable ends, humble massing, and secluded location. 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. Grant Place extends from the intersection of Grant and Sherman streets, parallel to the old Boston & Maine railroad tracks (now the Minuteman Bikeway), and ends just short of Oakland Street. The history of this piece of land is not well known at present, but seems closely related to Lexington's industrial history. The railroad arrived in Lexington in 1845-46, and the area now traversed by Grant Place was part of a large rail yard at least through 1906, including a turntable and locomotive house. A wood footbridge connected the depot and Oakland Street, crossing the tracks just south of M. H. Merriam & Co.'s shoe findings factory (1918, 1927, and 1935; NR 2009). Between 1927 and 1935, most of the railroad buildings were removed from the area. Residential development of today's Grant Place was sporadic, and both 2-4 and 11 Grant Place may have been moved to this streetscape, as they seem stylistically to pre-date the street itself. An extension of Sherman Street west of Grant Street first appears on the maps in 1889 as an informal passageway into the rail yards, at right angles to Grant Street. A roadway here is not depicted again in any form until 1918, when a stubby Grant Place Continuation sheet I INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON I 1 GRANT PLACE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 0 2122 extends at an acute angle from Grant Street. Between 1927 and 1935, the original stub of Grant Place was joined by the Sherman Street Extension, apparently just a road on paper, which extended perpendicular to Grant Street and is shown as 50 feet wide and connecting with Oakland Street. By 1950, the Sherman Street Extension was renamed Grant Place, but was still just hypothetical. 2-4 Grant Street appears on its current site by 1918; 11 Grant Place by 1950. Two buildings at what is now the end of Grant Place (a side by side duplex and a single-family dwelling) are also in place by 1918; the present pair of buildings there may be re-workings of those two early residences. A house at the head of Grant Street (#22, apparently extant), facing Sherman Street, was standing here by 1927. The present house at 11 Grant Street is first definitely shown in its current location in 1950. Despite not being depicted on earlier maps, the 1922 directory identifies two residents at 11 Grant Place: Mrs. Mary Vollborth (no occupation) and Pauline M. Vollborth, a clerk. (Mrs. Vollborth may have lived here as early as 1894, when the town directory has an entry for her with the street address"west of Grant nr railroad." Ida Vollborth, at the Keeley Institute, was boarding with her in that year.) Subsequent residents identified at this address include Joseph T. DeGrinney, a credit manager, and (his mother?) Ellen F. DeGrinney (1935); Thomas Scheni, a gardener, his wife Maria, and presumably their son Michael, employed in roadwork, and daughter Judy, a clerk (1955 and 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: 1894, 1899, 1902, 1908-09, 1922, 1924, 1930, 1934, 1936, 1942. Lexington List of Persons: 1935, 1945, 1955, 1960, 1965. Massachusetts Historical Commission. "MHC Reconnaissance Survey Town Report: Lexington." 1980. U.S. Census: 1920, 1940. SUPPLEMENTARY IMAGES allM Left side and front (facade) elevations Continuation sheet 2