Grand 2002-Built Five Fields Home

2 Barberry Road, Five Fields, Lexington. Offered at $1,895,000 (Sold)

Photos by Lara Kimmerer unless otherwise noted. Click any photo to enlarge and view as a slide show. Open houses Saturday, September 17 1:00-3:00 and Sunday, September 18, 12:30-2:30. Contact us with questions or to request a showing. 

A rare opportunity to own this 2002-built* grand and gracious International Style modernist home that was designed by architect Ben Olson, in his words, “to fit into the existing historic [and coveted] community of Five Fields developed in the 1950’s by The Architects Collaborative of Cambridge who followed the land use and design philosophies of famed architect [and Bauhaus co-founder], Walter Gropius.”

The design is stepped into the professional landscaping, creating outdoor spaces that are extensions of the interior rooms. The sophisticated design is perfect for entertaining. The formal living and dining areas flow into the well-appointed kitchen, and open to multiple decks and terrace. The large living room has a masonry fireplace that is sited inside the room, off of the exterior wall, forming a 16 X 9 library area. A large family room flows from the dining room, and includes a home office alcove, a second fireplace, glass sliders, and a clerestory window. The profusion of light is carried throughout the home by skylights, more clerestory windows, and a wood-slat wall leading upstairs to 3 bedrooms, a Master suite with a Zen-like bath and a dressing area. There is also a first-floor bedroom suite with its own bath, sitting room, and exterior access, perfect as an au pair, in-law, or home office suite. Sited thoughtfully into the landscape, the exterior profile is striking with multi-level roof lines, glass walls and wood siding. A separate portico outbuilding off of the garage, that can serve as storage or a studio and forms the outer border of the property, creates a courtyard patio and deck area off the kitchen. A large 2-car garage and pea-stone drive complete the property. Two Barberry is part of the Five Fields association which includes wooded conservation land with pond and pool.

2 Barberry Road by the numbers:

• 13 rooms
• 5 bedrooms
• 3 full, 2 half baths
• 4,820 s.f. of living area
• 26,667 s.f. lot (.61 acre)
• 3 fireplaces
• Custom built-in shelves and cabinets in family room
• 2 laundry rooms, one plumbed for gas dryer
• Wired Cat 5 and 6:1 surround sound (family room)
• Security system wired and available
• Kitchen with Subzero refrigerator; gas countertop range; double oven; Bosch dishwasher; hardwood floors; doors to private patio area
• Older portion* of house roof is about three years old. The roof on the rest of the house was circa-2002
• Natural gas heating, cooking, dryer hookup, and outdoor grilling
• Master bath with subway tile; jetted soaking tub; walk-in shower
• Master bedroom suite with two walk-in closets and gas fireplace
• 3 zones (separate air handlers) of forced air heating and cooling
• Large garage with electric car charger and plumbed for natural gas hookup (to heat)
• Two 200-amp electrical service, underground from Concord Ave.
• Negotiable: washer/dryer; gas grill; electric car charger
• Property abuts wetlands. No water problems. Gutters and perimeter drains go to cistern/leeching field system for drainage. Two sump pumps with marine battery backup.
• YEARLY Five Fields dues $270 for common areas and about $500 for pool
• (See more detailed list of specs at end of post)

*A small portion of the original 1952 house was encompassed into the new house, so town lists house as built in 1952. From Ben Olson, who oversaw the project:

In 1952, The house was originally designed and lived in by Chester Nagel, one of the original TAC architects.

More about Ben Olson and the project here.

The Neighborhood

The below is taken from our history of Five Fields, which is included in an overview of the modernist communities found in Lexington, here at this page (includes a video tour of Five Fields, Moon Hill, and Peacock Farm).

While the houses of Six Moon Hill in Lexington were mainly built as a community to house the highly collaborative The Architects Collaborative (TAC) partners and associates themselves (Bauhaus and TAC founder, Walter Gropius, built his own famous house out in the nearby town of Lincoln), the architects also conceived of their next such development of spec houses to sell to other home buyers and chose a farm on the southwestern part of town. The old Cutler Farm was purchased by the TAC and the young firm moved forward on their conception of a development that they would control from beginning to end. This became the neighborhood known as Five Fields.

One of the original eight TAC partners, Dick Morehouse, who was a resident of Moon Hill, oversaw the project and even acted as a salesman, showing the new homes to interested buyers.

The project was conceptualized as 68 house sites, though the initial phase consisted of 20 houses built in 1951, 1952, and 1953, the sales of which would finance the rest of the project. The original price points of these homes—some of which now fetch close to $2 million– ranged from about $18,000-35,000.

“For twenty years after the establishment of the neighborhood, TAC approval had to be obtained for additions. The restriction expired in the early 1970s. Today, almost all of the houses have been modified or added onto over the years, obscuring what was originally a neighborhood of houses built as variations on a few standard plans.” (See link to source, below).

As one of the other original partners, Chip Harkness, explained to the Boston Globe a number of years ago, describing the goals of the TAC when they set out to build Moon Hill, “An initial goal was low-income housing. We were shooting to build homes for under $15,000. That’s quite a bit less than the $1 million one of the houses recently went for.” Like Moon Hill, form followed function in the design of the Five Fields houses, the homes were sited sympathetically into their surroundings and the existing contours of the land, and there was common land set aside and a swimming pool, a playground with playing fields, and a skating pond, for the community. This community spirit carries on today in both Moon Hill and Five Fields.

A boy jumps into the Five Fields swimming pool, from the commemorative book, Five Fields — Five Decades: A Community in Progress.

More can be read here, at the page for Five Fields on the town of Lexington’s Historic Survey site.