This bungalow has grouped horizontal windows and an exceptionally wide roof overhang carried on the exposed ends of the roof rafters. The front edge of the roof is further supported by two large knee braces. Low, square piers flank the porch steps and secure the porch balustrade. The prominent dormer serves more as decoration than as a source of light. This house is a good example of the bungalow style in Reading - a style formed in the West and embraced across the country as part of the interest in efficient and economical use of space that developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

This house illustrates a typical pattern of land development in Reading. Two families - the Appletons and the Temples - owned large, contiguous tracts of land. A street was laid out along the boundary in 1848, and named Temple Street. With the area opened for development, a few lots were sold and built upon, but spaces remained between the houses. These spaces gradually filled up with houses as the years went by, such that Temple Street now has houses from most of the stylistic periods of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Owner of this house was Annie Bliss, known as Nancy Bliss. She wrote a weekly column for the Reading Chronicle curing the 1930's. She also ran a small candy shop in her home that was frequented by children. - 19 July 1984, NRHP nomination for House at 44 Temple Street, Commonwealth of Massachusetts