HomeMy WebLinkAboutvine-brook-road_0032 I AREA FORM NO. I
FORM B - BUILDING 465
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION
294 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON, MA 02108
wn Lexington
MI dress 32 Vine Brook Road
storic Name Russell-Raymond-Valentine
1F t �fF flll �ouse
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allKIN M
} =~= e: Present residential
Wn M�6 Original residential
I-OF it
DESCRIPTION:
to 1794
Source Edwin B. Worthen
SKETCH MAP
Show property' s location in relation Style Federal/Colonial Revival
to nearest cross streets and/or
geographical features. Indicate Architect
all buildings between inventoried
property and nearest intersection. Exterior wall fabric clapboards
Indicate north.
Outbuildings
0
Major alterations (with dates) remodeled
and given Colonial Revival dormers and
doorway (1896)
.p Y�Q
� Moved e-S M /}l2 Date f
Approx. acreage 31860 ft.2
Recorded by Anne Grady Setting Residential street of houses of
Organization Lexington Historical Commission mixed date, several others moved here
Date April, 1984 from elsewhere.
(Staple additional sheets here)
ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE (Describe important architectural features and
evaluate in terms of other buildings within the community.)
This house, built in 1794, remodeled c. 1896 and moved to this site in
1941, retains Federal finishes in the front rooms, the original portion of the
house. The left hand room exhibits a simple mantelpiece with panelled
pilasters and a broad frieze. The stair hall has a single run staircase with
cut-out scrolled step-end decoration and turned balusters. The balusters are
more substantial than typical Federal balusters and the newel post is of the
"pot bellied" type.
(see Continuation Sheet)
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE (Explain the role owners played in local or state
history and how the building relates to the development of the community.)
The house was built on the site of Decelles on Massachusetts Avenue in
1794 by Joshua Russell, a boot and shoemaker, at the time of his marriage to
Susanna Smith on land owned by her father, Jonathan, a leather tanner. In
1855 the property was purchased from Russell's heirs by Freeborn Fairfield
Raymond, a former resident of Boston. Raymond, a businessman, had been a
councilman, assessor, school committeeman and commissioner for 17 years in
Boston.
Dr. Henry L. Valentine, physician and surgeon, married Mary Sherburne in
1896, and they occupied the house thereafter. The house was owned by Mary's
father, Warren Sherburne. Sherburne moved the house back on the lot and
remodeled it in the Colonial Revival style in 1896. Valentine was a member of
Lexington's Board of Health from 1894 to 1900 and was town physician from 1894
until after 1913.
In 1941 Eugene Viano moved the house to its new site on Vine Brook Road
to make way for the construction of the building currently occupied by Decelles.
BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES (name of publication, author, date and publisher)
Hudson, Charles. History of the Town of Lexington, revised and continued to
1912 by the Lexington Historical Society, Volume II, pp. 553, 717. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Company, 1913.
Letter from Edwin B. Worthen to Eugene Viano, February 7, 1941.
Lexington Minute Man, April 10, 1896.
Snapshots of house moving. Worthen Collection, Cary Memorial Library.
10M - 7/82
INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET CortmnuZity: Form No:
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL CCNKSSION Lexington 4.65
Office of the Secretary, Boston
Property Name: 32 Vine Brook Road
Indicate each item on inventory forth which is being continued below.
ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE
The right hand room has an elaboratively molded cornice and an unusual
frieze. The frieze is made of two rows of diagonally placed reeding, giving
the effect of a herringbone pattern. The dado in this room has a frieze with
applied diamond shapes. The mantelpiece has been removed, but the chimney in
this room was apparently on the rear wall, rather than on the end wall as in
the left hand room
The building, now two rooms deep, was embellished with doorway with
leaded glass fan- and sidelights with elaborate lead tracery and dormer windows
with arched tracery in the Colonial Revival period. The rear ell of the house
is now a separate house at 27 Vine Brook Road and the barn was moved to 14
Vine Brook Road and converted into a house.
Staple to Inventory form at bottom