HomeMy WebLinkAbouthancock-street_0046 FORM B - BUILDING
Assessor's Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number
0056000040 Boston N. 725
_- f.:.A
Town Lexington
Place (neighborhood or village)
*' Address 46 Hancock St.
Historic Name Warren M. Batcheller House#1
411,
i''" Uses: Present Residential
lw
Original Residential
Date of Construction 1897
r
Source Minute-man,Worthen letter
E
Style/Form Colonial Revival
„A
Architect/Builder
' xIX'
!� Exterior Material:
t Foundation Fieldstone
Wall/Trim Wood Clapboard
.t
Roof Asphalt Shingle
Outbuildings/Secondary Structures
Major Alterations(with dates)
r
zo Condition Good
Moved ® no ❑ yes Date
`— AAGo614 "c
i Acreage 0.6 A.
Setting On a heavily-trafficked residential street in a
neighborhood of large, high-style 19th-and early 20th-
Recorded by Nancy S. Seasholes century houses
Organization Lexington Historical Commission
Date(month/year) January 1998
Follow Massachusetts Historical Commission Survey Manual instructions for completing this form.
BUILDING FORM
ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION ❑ see continuation sheet
Describe architectural features. Evaluate the characteristics of this building in terms of other buildings within the community.
The house at 46 Hancock St. is one of many well-preserved Colonial Revivals in Lexington but is distinguished by its elaborate
doorway, which was moved here in 1929 from an earlier building(see Historical Narrative). The house is rectangular in plan,
three-by-two bays, 2'/2-stories, and side-gabled with an end chimney. At the rear is a one-story screened porch. The house is set
on a fieldstone foundation, clad with wood clapboards, and roofed with asphalt shingles. The recessed center entrance is framed
by an elliptical arch with a key block and side pilasters with Ionic capitals. There are molded panels, some with a Greek fret
design, in the reveals and elaborate tracery in the sidelights and the elliptical fanlight. Windows are 8/1 or 4/1 double hung sash.
Colonial Revival details include modillions at the cornice,paired windows under a dentil course in the south gable(see photo),and
a palladian window with lancet panes in the north gable.
HISTORICAL NARRATIVE ❑ see continuation sheet
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.
This house was built in 1897 by Warren M. Batcheller(b. 1842), a real estate developer who had bought the lot in 1888,which at
the time contained an earlier house. Batcheller lived in his parents' house at 53 Hancock St. (MHC# 730), reportedly renting the
older house on this lot and then living in it before building this house.
The doorway of this house came from the Paul Revere Tavern,originally the Monument House, which stood on the southwest
corner of Massachusetts Ave. and Muzzey St. until it was town down in 1929 to make way for the Lexington Trust Co. building,
now the Fleet Bank. The Monument House was reportedly built about 1840 as a hotel by a Christopher Solis. It was later
enlarged by Charles Adair and called Adair's Tavern; an 1888 photograph shows it as a large 2'/z-story, five-by-five bay, front-
gabled Greek Revival building. After the old ell was destroyed by fire and rebuilt in 1892, it became the Leslie House and finally,
in the first decade of the 20th century,Ye Paul Revere Tavern. The doorway is very similar to the one at 676-678 Massachusetts
Ave. in East Lexington (MHC#212), which was reportedly designed by Isaac Melvin and is pictured in an antiquarian article
about Lexington architecture. When the tavern was demolished, Eugene G. Kraetzer,who was remodeling his house at 46
Hancock St., purchased the doorway and installed it here.
BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES ® see continuation sheet
Hudson, Charles. History of the Town of Lexington. Revised and continued to 1912 by the Lexington Historical Society.
Boston: Houghton Mullin, 1913. 2: 26.
Kelley, Beverly Allison. Lexington:A Century of Photographs. Lexington, Mass: Lexington Historical Society, 1980. 111.
Lexington Minute-man, 25 Dec. 1896.
Middlesex Registry of Deeds. Deeds. Cambridge, Mass. 1871: 20.
Piper, Fred Smith. "Architectural Yesterdays in Lexington." Proceedings of the Lexington Historical Society 4 (1912): opp.
127.
❑ Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. If checked,you must attach a completed National
Register Criteria Statement form.
INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET Town Property Address
Lexington 46 Hancock St.
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD 725
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES (continued)
"Then&Now: Monument House now Shawmut Bank." Lexington Minuteman, 9 November 1995.
S. Lawrence Whipple, personal communication.
Worthen, Edwin B. to Mrs. Bruce Currie, 16 February 1951. Worthen Collection. Cary Library, Lexington, MA.
. Notes on buildings burned,torn down, and moved. "Houses"file,Worthen Collection. Cary Library, Lexington,
Mass.
. A Calendar History of Lexington, Massachusetts, 1620-1946. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Savings Bank,
1946. 62, 124.
Tracing the Past in Lexington, Massachusetts. New York: Vantage Press, 1998. 179.