The URL can be used to link to this page

Home My WebLink Aboutlowell-street_0519 FORM B BUILDING Assessor's Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number 0 0 2243 MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION 61/496 MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD Town/City: Lexington BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Place: (neighborhood or village): Photograph Address: 519 Lowell Street Historic Name: =' Uses: Present: residential Original: residential Date of Construction: ca. 1905-1920 Source: style, family history t 11 {�111111V�' ""II"`lil'l �'� Style/Form: Four-Square j. Architect/Builder: Exterior Material: Foundation: fieldstone West (facade) and south elevations Wall/Trim: artificial siding and trim Locus Map Roof- asphalt shingles Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: — 0 None � ,•• `� ��'.� � � �~;� Major Alterations (with dates) : to st Artificial siding, replacement sash, (L 20 — E 21 C); wrap- _—= J �► around porch, fenestration on south (right)side (E 21St c?) • Condition: good Moved: no ❑ yes ❑ Date: r Acreage: 1.17 'r rl Setting: Located on a main thoroughfare through East Lexington, close to a major intersection with East Street. Surrounded by residential develoment of various styles, { ; and scales, mostly mid to late 20t�century construction. 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 519 LOWELL STREET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 2243 ❑ 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. 519 Lowell Street occupies a front corner of a spacious lot near the intersection of two important thoroughfares, Lowell and East streets. A narrow strip of land connects the street frontage property on which the house stands to an approximately equally sized interior parcel roughly 600 feet to the south. The site containing the house is flat along the street edge and slopes significantly down to the back, behind the house. Maintained chiefly in lawn in its modest front yard and large side yard, the land also contains mature street trees at the front corners of the lot, a shrubbery hedge along the street, scattered small trees, and a broad paved driveway to the right of the house. The 2 '/2 story building consists of a simple square block. The house rises 2 '/2 stories from a raised basement with a fieldstone foundation to a high hip roof with high hip roofed dormers centered on the front and back elevations and one interior chimney. Walls are sheathed with artificial siding and trim. Windows typically have 1/1 double hung replacement sash with vinyl trim. The asymmetrical fagade contains an offset, two story angled bay window with a single window on each face at both floors and a modern, single-leaf door near the center of the fagade that is surmounted by a single window on the second story. A hip-roofed porch with Tuscan posts extends across the front and right side elevations. It has modern wood railings with square balusters and wood stairways on both elevations. (Assessor's photos show that the fagade previously had an enclosed, hip roofed sun porch only across the flat part of the fagade, south of the bay window.) The right (south) side elevation has asymmetrical fenestration, with three irregularly sized and placed windows on the second floor and a slightly off-center doorway with full height sidelights. (Assessor's photos show this elevation without a porch, and with two windows and an offset door at the first floor, and other fenestration on the second floor.) The left(north) side elevation has two widely spaced, vertically aligned windows on each floor. An exterior wood stairway and second floor deck are partially visible on the rear elevation. Well maintained, 519 Lowell Street is a typical example of early 20th century suburban housing in Lexington, although its overall character has been altered by the substitution of a wrap-around verandah for the original front porch, and significant changes to fenestration on a prominent side elevation. The building is notable for its large lot, Four Square form, hip roof dormers, and two- story bay window on the fagade. 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. 519 Lowell Street is located near the important crossroads of Lowell and East streets in east Lexington. Lowell Street appears to have followed a Native American trail and was developed as an important transportation corridor in the Colonial period. A new regional turnpike system radiating from Boston was established in the early 19th century; Lowell Street formed part of the Middlesex Turnpike (ca. 1806), which extended from Cambridge to Tyngsborough and the New Hampshire border. Appearing on the town maps by 1830, East Street is an early road, facilitating access to the farmland of east Lexington and connecting to the adjacent town of Woburn. This peripheral area of East Lexington remained mostly agricultural and sparsely developed through the early 20th century, however, home to commercial dairy and produce farms. At the turn of the 20th century, a small cluster of buildings appeared around Lowell and East streets. A building appears near the southeast corner of this intersection by 1898; in 1906 it was identified as N. Comeau. Construction of the present house at Continuation sheet I INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 519 LOWELL STREET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 2243 this time would be stylistically early, but not entirely inconceivable. Further research is recommended to establish more conclusively the date of the house and uses of the property. The earliest known occupants of 519 Lowell Street were Nicholas D. Comeau, a house carpenter, who lived here with his wife Eugenia M. and their four children beginning at least by 1906. Both French Canadians, Nicholas (a widower) and Eugenie Comeau were married in 1908; Nicholas may have built the house himself soon after. Although Nicholas's occupation was consistently identified as carpenter, the 1920 census does describe the property as a farm, with a farm schedule. Agriculture may have been a sideline for the Comeau family. Nicholas Comeau was still living here in 1945 (then retired), accompanied by Harold W. Koford, a foreman. By 1955, the property was occupied by an unusually large number of adults: Ralph E. Coward, a laborer, and his wife Joyce N.; James McDonnell, a hospital worker; Philip Tullar, a carpenter; and Sherman Weaver, a laborer, and his wife Jacqueline. In 1965, Courtney C. Comeau, an electrician (likely Nicholas's grandson), Carol A. Comeau, a nurse, and Evelyn E. Cote, who worked at Sylvania, lived at this address. BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, Marriage Records, 1840-1915 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013. Original data: Massachusetts Vital Records, 1840-1911. New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, Massachusetts. Massachusetts Vital Records, 1911-1915. New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, Massachusetts. Historic maps and atlases: Walling 1853; Beers 1875; Walker 1889; Stadly 1898; Walker 1906; Sanborn 1908, 1918, 1927, 1935, 1935/1950. Lexington Comprehensive Cultural Resources Survey, Period Summaries. http://historicsurvey.lexingtonma.gov/index.htm Accessed Jul 23, 2015. Lexington Directories: 1899, 1906, 1908-09, 1913, 1922, 1934, 1936. Lexington List of Persons: 1935, 1945, 1955, 1965. Massachusetts Historical Commission. "MHC Reconnaissance Survey Town Report: Lexington." 1980. U.S. Census: 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940. SUPPLEMENTARY IMAGES 5 1 4444 J� - Assessors photograph: West (fagade)and south elevations Continuation sheet 2