HomeMy WebLinkAboutvine-brook-road_0001 FORM B — BUILDING Assessor's Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number
oston
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION 48/788 BNorth 1618
MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Town: Lexington
Place: (neighborhood or village)
Photograph
,. Address: 1 Vine Brook Road
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Historic Name: Taft-Morse House
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Uses: Present: residential
Original: residential
Date of Construction: c.1910
Source: maps
Style/Form: Colonial Revival
Architect/Builder: unknown
Exterior Material:
Foundation:
Wall/Trim: wood shingles
Roof: asphalt shingles
Outbuildings/Secondary Structures:
none
Topographic or Assessor's Ma
Major Alterations(with dates):
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3
72 1
Condition: good
S84 Moved: no x yes Date
,0, 7 '
h � FeRo Acreage: 0.11 acre
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46� s Setting: neighborhood of 19th and 20th century
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houses off Waltham Street near Lexington Center
Recorded by: Lisa Mausolf
Organization: Lexington Historical Commission
Date(month/year): Feb. 2010
Follow Massachusetts Historical Commission Survey Manual instructions for completing this form.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 1 VINE BROOK RD.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
1618
Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.
If checked,you must attach a completed National Register Criteria Statement form.
ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION:
Describe architectural features. Evaluate the characteristics of this building in terms of other buildings within the community.
1 Vine Brook Road is a good example of eclectic early 20th century Colonial Revival domestic architecture. The 1 %2-story
cottage is sheathed in wood shingles and a series of pedimented dormers punctuate the gambrel roof which displays projecting
eaves. Character-defining features include the fanlit front entry, a three-sided bay at the west end of the facade and the
decorative window with geometric tracery at the center of the fagade. The predominant window form has multiple lights in the
upper sash and a single light lower sash.
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.
Neither the house nor Vine Brook Road had been built at the time of the 1906 map which shows the land as being owned by
Augustus E. Scott. Nor is there a house on this site at the time of the 1908 Sanborn map.
According to deed records,the property was sold by A.E. Scott to Ezra Taft in 1914 (Book 3910,Page 419). A house was
definitely in place by 1917 and is shown on the Sanborn map of 1918. It was sold by Fletcher and Ezra Taft to Beatrice Morse
in 1918 (Book 4204,Page 273-4).
Directories indicate that George V. Morse and his wife Beatrice were living here in 1918. He was employed as a lumber
salesman in Boston. In 1930 the couple was living here with their four children and his mother. They were still here in 1942.
Later owners included John and Mary Orcutt and Karsten and Nancy Sorensen(1975-2005).
BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES
Middlesex County Register of Deeds, Cambridge, Mass.
Sanborn Insurance maps
Town Directories
U.S. Census,various years.
1906 map
Continuation sheet 1