To learn more about Peacock Farm:

• Lexington Historical Society Survey
• Wikipedia entry
• Interview with Walter Pierce
• Modernism in Mid-Century Massachusetts
• Boston Globe: Out to save the modern home (Feb. 24, 2011)
• NYTimes: Walter Pierce, Modernist Architect, Dies at 93

For the Neighborhood Association:

• Board member email login
• Board member cpanel

From the Lexington Historical Society Survey:

Located near the Arlington town line and just north of Routes 2 and 4/225, the Peacock Farm neighborhood is a development of contemporary style houses built between 1952 and 1958. It was the third important planned modernist development to be begun in Lexington, after Six Moon Hill and at about the same time as Five Fields.

In 1951 Danforth Compton and Walter Pierce, recent graduates of the M.I.T. School of Architecture, purchased 42 acres of land that had been a dairy farm in the 19th century. The original c.1830 farmhouse and barn still stood and can still be seen today, at the entrance to the modern development. As the name suggests, peacocks were raised here in the early twentieth century.

With a goal of making contemporary styling accessible to those with limited budgets, Compton and Pierce designed a single-story house with raised basement, low pitch roof and vertical cedar siding that was available in several sizes. The entry was at mid-level and the houses incorporated large expanses of glass. The house at 4 Peacock Farm Road was built as a demonstration model late in 1951.

Continue reading at the Lexington Historical Society Survey >>