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Home My WebLink Aboutindependence-avenue_0010 FORM B BUILDING Assessor's Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION 22/108A 0 0 2237 MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD Town/City: Lexington BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Place: (neighborhood or village): Photograph Address: 10 Independence Avenue ' Historic Name: Larkin Smith House Uses: Present: residential Original: residential Date of Construction: ca. 1870-75 Source: historic maps, U.S. census Style/Form: Italianate Architect/Builder: Exterior Material: Assessors' photograph: Foundation: granite rubble Left side and front(fagade) elevations Wall/Trim: wood clapboards and trim Locus Map Roof: asphalt shingles Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: -� Attached garage 4 Major Alterations (with dates): Rear additions, garage, front entr porch (late 20th c) exterior chimney on fagade (E 20 h c) 7 Ara 2-110 42 Condition: very good 22-1 T?A. -7 Moved: no ❑ yes ❑ Date: Acreage: Setting: Residential side street, close to intersection with } main thoroughfare of Massachusettts Avenue. 22—M �-13D 22- � * Heteroq�eneous streetscape with buildings from early 19th to mid 20t c; mostly small to medium scale and set close to the street. 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 10 INDEPENDENCE AVE. MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 0 2237 ❑ 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 Independence Avenue occupies a comparatively large downtown lot that slopes up gently from the street. A substantial hedge, small trees and shrubs, and lawn occupy most of the front and sides of the property, with a large paved driveway and parking area in the center that is framed by the house, its rear ells, and a garage wing. The house consists of a rectangular main block, a parallel ear extension and perpendicular rear ell, and a garage wing set at an angle to the rest of the house and to the street. The main block rises 2 '/2 stories from a granite rubble foundation to a low-pitched, front gable roof with narrow gable returns. An exterior chimney climbs the front fagade of the main block; an interior chimney is situated near the center of the left slope of the main block. Walls are sheathed with wood clapboards and are trimmed with plain flat corner boards and a flat fascia with a narrow crown molding. Windows are typically 6/1 double-hung replacement sash with flat casings. The fagade contains an offset entrance with a modest gabled hood supported on plain braces. Wide flat trim surrounds the single-leaf door, which has vertical wood panels and 3 by 3 glass panes above. The door is accessed by a poured concrete stairway with brick treads. A small window is set between the doorway and exterior chimney on the first floor. Two widely spaced windows are symmetrically positioned on the second floor, and a smaller window is centered above in the half story. The left side elevation of the main block has two widely spaced window bays with one window and a small angled bay window at the first floor and two windows on the second floor. The right side elevation is not easily visible from the street. Observed were a pair of fixed, multi-light windows towards the front on the first floor and a picture windows towards the back of the first floor, on the rear extension. A short stairway addition at the back left corner of the main block connects to a perpendicular, two-story wing with a side gable roof. The fagade of this wing has a trio of tall windows on the first floor and two individual windows on the second floor. Projecting from the end of this wing is a 1 '/z story entry bay with a high gable roof and single-leaf doorway at grade. This sequence of additions is completed by an attached garage that twists at an angle around the parking area/driveway. The garage has a side gable roof with a saltbox form at the rear, a cross-gabled dormer, and two vehicle bays. Although well maintained, 10 Independence Avenue is a much-altered example of vernacular, late 19th century architecture near Massachusetts Avenue. The house is notable for its comparatively large scale, original massing (weighted down by extensive additions), front gable form, and the handsome proportions of the main volume. 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. Present-day Independence Avenue connects Massachusetts Avenue and Locust Street, traversing the base of a low hill that was known as Mt. Independence in 1853. The roadway originated in the early 19th century, with several extant houses from that period. Only the eastern, Mass. Avenue end of the street (extending approximately to today's Tower Road) appears on the 1875 Beers map, curving up to a grid of paper streets which were platted with a multitude of small and narrow house lots, none of which were developed at that time. (The subdivision plan was abandoned early in the 20th century, likely because of the challenging hillside topography.) Houses of various shapes and sizes lined both sides of this short section of Independence Continuation sheet I INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 10 INDEPENDENCE AVE. MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 0 2237 Avenue in 1875. On the map of that year, 10 Independence Avenue is pictured as a simple rectangular block with a small ell centered at the back; it was owned by L. Smith. By 1898, the house featured a larger rear ell, now off the right end of the house, with a large attached barn at the end. L. Smith is named here again. This building configuration remained in place in 1906, but the attached barn disappeared by 1927, when it replaced by a smaller, detached accessory building, one-story high, behind the house. 10 Independence Avenue is thought to have been built between 1870 and 1875 by Larkin Smith, a tinsmith, who occupied the building until at least 1913. (He was boarding elsewhere in 1918.) Smith (b. 1840)was the son of Larkin and Lucy Stone Smith. In 1870 he married Charlotte Bennett (b. 1847), the daughter of Prescott and Almira Bass Bennett. In the 1870 census (evidently taken prior to his marriage), Larkin lived in a large household with four members of the A. Goddard family—of whom the father and son were tin plate workers—a servant, and two unrelated young men who were also tin plate workers. Perhaps the younger workers were apprentices to the head of the household. By 1922, the house was occupied by Frederick S. Ormond, a general foreman at the "BRN Co.", and his wife Mary; a Miss Mary Macone boarded with them. In 1935, Rodney D. Harriman, an auto mechanic, and his wife Edith J., were living here, along with Leon E. Harriman, a bank clerk in Boston, and E. Louise Harriman, presumably Leon's wife. Later occupants included John Fowle, retired, and his wife Annie (1945) and John Gerogosian, a merchant and meat cutter, and his wife Wanda E. (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. Hudson, Charles. History of the Town of Lexington, Vol. II –Genealogies. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1913. Lexington Comprehensive Cultural Resources Survey, Period and Area Summaries. http://historicsurveV.Iexingtonma.gov/index.htm Accessed Jul 23, 2015. Lexington Directories: 1899, 1908-09, 1913, 1918, 1922, 1934, 1936. Lexington List of Persons: 1935, 1945, 1955, 1965. Massachusetts Historical Commission. "MHC Reconnaissance Survey Town Report: Lexington." 1980. U.S. Census: 1870, 1880, 1900, 1930, 1940. Continuation sheet 2 INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 10 INDEPENDENCE AvE. MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 2237 SUPPLEMENTARY IMAGES Front fagade of main block Rear all and left side elevation of main block 3 ■■ ■■■■■■■■■■ eo■woven= _K - w Garage and rear additions Front fagade of garage addition Continuation sheet 3