HomeMy WebLinkAboutnorth-hancock-street_0020 FORM B BUILDING
Assessor's Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION
71/112 0 0 2256
MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Town/City: Lexington
Place: (neighborhood or village):
Photograph
Address: 20 North Hancock Street
l Historic Name:
Uses: Present: residential
�� Original: residential
Ir .: — .
Date of Construction: ca. 1890-1910
+t 1� Source: assessors' records, historic maps, style
- Style/Form: Victorian eclectic
Architect/Builder:
Exterior Material:
West and south (facade)elevations Foundation: brick, poured concrete
Wall/Trim: wood clapboards and trim
Locus Map
Roof: asphalt shingles
is,ass Outbuildings/Secondary Structures:
none
{
s7.$ Major Alterations (with dates):
Fenestration, projecting bays, entrance vestibule?, side
wing (L 20th– E 21St c)
r t n�
1 G;
' o + Condition: excellent
+N
Moved: no ❑ yes ❑ Date:
° Acreage: 0.24
�v, e 22r Setting: Located close to main thoroughfare of Bedford
b Street on a cross road between radial Bedford and Hancock
streets. Residential neighborhood with regularly spaced
houses mainly constructed in the early to mid 20th century.
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 20 NORTH HANCOCK ST.
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
2256
❑ 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.
20 North Hancock Street is set on a slight skew to the street with a deep front setback. Maintained chiefly in lawn, the land
slopes up gently to the street and is contained by a fieldstone retaining wall at the street edge and along the driveway.
Foundation plantings and scattered trees comprise other major landscaping elements. A paved driveway occupies the left side
of the parcel, and a brick walk with granite steps leads from the driveway to the front entrance. The roughly L-shaped building
consists of a 2 '/2 story main block with a couple of rear appendages.
The building rises from a brick foundation at the front gabled wing and a poured concrete foundation at the left side wing. Walls
are clad with wood clapboards and trimmed with flat corner boards and flat belt courses between the first and second floors.
Some of the belt courses are ornamented with modern dentils. Raking fascia boards on the gable ends have decoratively sawn
ends and no returns. Windows are chiefly 8/8 double-hung sash on the first floor and 6/6 sash on the second floor, all with
narrow band moldings. There are also a variety of picture and bay windows. The two-bay fagade of the front gable wing has an
offset gabled entrance vestibule, with pilasters, a single leaf door with half-height sidelights, and a semi-circular sunburst motif
over the door. The wider bay contains a large bow window at the first floor and a rectangular bay at the second floor, both with
modern grouped windows. An arched window is centered in the half-story, which is clad with patterned wood shingles.
The right elevation of the front wing has four asymmetrical windows on the second floor and an exterior brick chimney towards
the front. A one-story shed-roofed addition fills the corner between the front gable and the perpendicular wing on the left side.
The left wing contains three windows on the street-facing elevation. The gable end of this wing has a large bow window on the
first floor; an overhanging second story on which is centered a large, tri-partite, multi-light picture window; and an arched window
in the half-story. Barely visible from the street, a one-story garage with a gabled roof is attached to the back elevation of the
house.
Well-maintained but very extensively altered (the fagade and probably the entire left wing), 20 North Hancock Street is notable
as a relatively large, late Victorian suburban home. More research on the original appearance of this building is recommended.
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.
North Hancock Street is an early thoroughfare in Lexington, showing up on the 1830 map with a school located on the north side
of the road,just east of its mid-point. Development was sparse throughout the 19th century, with only two houses identified here
in the last half of the 20th century. Assessors' records for this house show a construction date of 1880, but this has not yet been
verified by historical records. In addition, the extent of alterations to the building makes it difficult to discern original and early
architectural features that would assist in determining a construction period.
In 1898 and 1906, land and two buildings near today's 20 North Hancock Street are identified as owned by F. E. Gleason. The
first known resident at this street address is Mrs. S. Louise Gleason, widow of Frederick E. Gleason, in 1922. Frederick E.
Gleason, a farmer, is also identified as living on Hancock Street, near Bedford, in 1899 and 1906. Subsequent residents
included Hobart Crocker, a builder, and his wife Eva (1934); John F. McCullough, who worked as a foreman and on the railroad,
with his wife Eleanor(1936, 1945); and John J. G. McCue, a physicist, and his wife Miriam, a psychologist(1955, 1965).
Continuation sheet I
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 20 NORTH HANCOCK ST.
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
2256
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 Comprehensive Cultural Resources Survey, Period Summaries. http://historicsurvey.lexingtonma.gov/index.htm
Accessed Jul 23, 2015.
Lexington Directories: 1899, 1908-09, 1915, 1918, 1922, 1933, 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.
SUPPLEMENTARY IMAGES
I
g.41 T
ii r■r■�:a' �'
South (facade)and east elevations Assessors' photograph: South (fagade)elevation
Continuation sheet 2