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Home My WebLink Abouthastings-road_0021 FORM B - BUILDING Assessor's Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number 005000210A Boston N. 685 Town Lexington Place (neighborhood or village) mow Address 21 Hastings Rd. .,� Historic Name Daniel Chandler House/Boston Female Asylum/Kimball House Uses: Present Residential ®� Original Residential W6C Date of Construction 1847 F.�= Source Tuttle list Style/Form Italianate (altered beyond recognition) �$ Architect/Builder David A. Tuttle Exterior Material: - Eli Foundation Not visible Wall/Trim Vinyl Siding r Roof Asphalt Shingle Outbuildings/Secondary Structures Attached garage ?soV �4e Major Alterations (with dates) Completely altered and renovated(1955) N 0 ,� • �q H. Condition Fair H4 Si T Cp •�' Moved M no ❑ yes Date ,•- �\` Acreage 1.3 A. Setting On a open lot on a side street with 20th-century Recorded by Nancy S. Seasholes houses Organization Lexington Historical Commission Date(month/year) March 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. 21 Hastings Rd. was once a high-style Italianate house but has been altered almost beyond recognition. The present house is rectangular, 2%2 stories, six-by-three bays, and is side-gabled with a rear chimney. Its foundation is not visible, it is clad with vinyl siding, and roofed with asphalt shingles. On the east elevation is a screened porch;on the west is a two-story,two-by-two bay side-gabled addition with a rear chimney and a garrison overhang. A side-gabled two-car garage is attached to this addition. At the rear a large shed-roofed wall dormer is over a part of the house that has been extended beyond the original rear wall, an exterior chimney has been added to the original house next to a rear entry,and behind the side addition is a one-story flat-roofed addition with a bay window. Almost the only original finish remaining on the main block are the long first-floor windows; the broken-pediment entry surround with fluted pilasters is new and probably so is the incised groove-and-pinwheel design on the front frieze board. 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 1847 by David A. Tuttle, one of Lexington's most prominent 19th-century builders, for Daniel Chandler (1788-1847),who had served in the War of 1812 and then been the superintendent of various Boston asylums—the Farm School on Thompson's Island, the House of Industry, and the House of Reformation. He died suddenly just before he was to move into this house. Daniel was a brother of Samuel Chandler,who in 1846 had built the high-style Italianate villa with a tower now at 8 Goodwin Rd. (MHC#101)and this house was reportedly an exact duplicate of that one. Although it is hard to believe in this incarnation, a ca. 1930 etching of this house shows that it did indeed once have a four-story tower. The tower was apparently located where the entry is now and the main block of the house extended four bays west of it, as the house still does; there was also a small two-story ell at the west end of the house,though of course without the present overhanging second story. East of the tower,the house was set back and had a wraparound porch that extended out to the line of the main block. It is not clear from the etching whether this house had as many elaborate Italianate finishes as does the one at 8 Goodwin Rd.,but the tower had a frieze under the cornice, perhaps similar to the frieze now on the facade, roundhead windows on the top story, and a second-story balcony similar to the balconies at 8 Goodwin Rd. There were long windows on the first floor, as there still are, and flattened arches between the square, bracketed posts of the wraparound porch. BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES ®see continuation sheet Clippings book. "Chandler, Samuel, Daniel." Scrapbook of late 1940s–early 1950s clippings from Lexington Minute-man. In possession of Nancy S. Seasholes, Lexington, Mass. Hall, Emily. Etching of the Kimball House. Copy in possession of S. Lawrence Whipple, Lexington, MA. Hudson, Charles. History of the Town of Lexington. Revised and continued to 1912 by the Lexington Historical Society. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1913. 2: 102. Middlesex Registry of Deeds. Deeds. Cambridge, MA. 1454: 553; 1946: 598; 2428: 246; 3293: 225. [] 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 21 Hastings Rd. MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD 685 BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 HISTORICAL NARRATIVE (continued) After Daniel Chandler's death in 1847 the house was acquired by John C. Blasdel,who was a state representative in 1867 and reportedly made the grounds of this house the"showplace"of Lexington. Blasdel died in 1873 and in 1884 the property was acquired by Charles E. Morey,who in 1889 divided the deep lot on which this house once stood so that the house now at 2139 Massachusetts Ave. (MHC#686)could be built on the western half. In 1896 Morey sold this house to the Boston Female Asylum, a Boston institution for orphaned and destitute girls. According to a Lexington resident whose mother had been placed in the home at age six because her widowed mother could not support her,this Lexington house was used as a summer residence. The Lexington resident said her mother came here with about 14 other girls and that a barn had been converted to a dormitory. When the girls were old enough, the home placed them in domestic service; the Lexington resident's mother left the home in 1900, when she was about 14, to go into service in Whately, Mass. In 1907 the house, whose address before Hastings Rd. was laid out was 2117 Massachusetts Ave.,was purchased by Catherine A. Kimball, the second wife of Franklin R. Kimball,who came from a wealthy Salem family. The Kimballs' oldest daughter Margaret"Peggy"(1906-1975)had the room at the top of the tower and was apparently very adventurous. In 1930 she became interested in flying and earned a pilot's license in February 1931. She flew in many air meets, acquired a transport license in 1933, knew many women aviators including Amelia Earhart, whom she idolized, and in 1937 was the second woman after Earhart to gain a non-scheduled instrument rating. In Lexington, Peggy performed in dramatic productions at the Old Belfry Club and was instrumental in the founding of the Arts &Crafts Society. The Kimball family owned the house until the 1950s. After they sold it, the land behind it was developed;Hastings Rd. was laid out in 1954, and in 1955 real estate developer Harvey Nugent, who then lived in this house, drastically renovated it, destroying its original Italianate appearance. BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES (continued) Tuttle, David Ainsworth. List of buildings erected in Lexington. Presented to the Lexington Historical Society, April 4, 1904. On file at Lexington Historical Society, Lexington, MA. Whipple, S. Lawrence. Notes on Boston Female Asylum and Kimball House. In possession of S. Lawrence Whipple, Lexington, MA. "Aviatrix Was Just a Step Behind Earhart." Lexington Minute-man, 26 March 1992. i•, .�t fy't�:-i��` _ ;y` ``,��. ,Fitt.= �,'tC f �rr �. 11 t 1 t � s