Miller-Heller House
122 Eddy Street, built in 1876William Henry Miller designed this building as his family residence, expanding it with seven major additions over the years and experimenting with medieval, Queen Anne, and Swiss chalet features. The home was purchased by Cornell alumna Lillian Purvis Heller in 1932, who provided housing to Cornell students before gifting the house to the university in 1957. It currently is used by the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning for visiting faculty and events.LISTEN HERE
Mary A. Halsey House
118 Eddy Street, built in 1893-1894Miller designed this home adjacent to his own for Mary A. Halsey, a relative of his wife. The home is now a private residence.LISTEN HERE
Greycourt Apartments
108-110 Eddy Street, built in 1909Miller designed and owned this apartment building, which was originally a home for prominent widows. The terra cotta bas reliefs on the front facade are an element that Miller often utilized.LISTEN HERE
East Hill School
111 Stewart Avenue, built in 1880-1881The East Hill School operated as an elementary school until 1976. It was renovated in 1984 and now houses apartments.LISTEN HERE
William Henry Sage House
603 E. Seneca Street, built in 1877-1878William Henry Miller completed a series of houses for lumber magnate and Cornell trustee chairman Henry Williams Sage and his family. This building was the home of Sage's son, William Henry Sage, who was involved in the development of railroads in central New York State.The house was built around 1878 and is basically Queen Anne in style, although the present third story--which was rebuilt in 1973 after the house was severely damaged by fire--does not do justice to the original. Surviving features include decorative brickwork, numerous elaborate chimneys, multiple projections including dormers, porches, bays, and varied fenestration. Among the more unusual features are the marble inset columns on the front façade, the carved birds and flowers on the capitals, the heavy stone lintel over the door and the decorative panel above it, and the stained glass windows. Inside the house, there is a tiled floor of Greek design and a fireplace made of mid-seventeenth century tiles decorated with Biblical scenes. The building was purchased by the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity in 1899 and converted to group housing.LISTEN HERE
Sage Carriage House
109 Sage Place, built in 1880William Henry Miller designed this carriage house for the Sage family. It was built in 1880 and possesses many characteristics of other Miller buildings. Notable features include a steeply pitched gable, the peak of which is trimmed with a stylized leaf design, dormers and skylights in the double-hipped roof, and a wrought-iron weathervane.LISTEN HERE
Cornell University Press: Henry W. Sage House
512 East State Street (112 Sage Place), built in 1876-1879When lumber magnate Henry Williams Sage planned a move to Ithaca from Brooklyn in 1875, he hired William Henry Miller to design a family compound that would reflect his prosperity. This was one of Miller’s most important early commissions and included this 20-room, English Revival house.The red sandstone house, where Sage and his wife lived, has a commanding view of the city. From the front lawn you can see the wide stick porch, a large decorative wooden truss at the top of the center gable, and a bay window beneath it. Other distinctive features include the beautiful stonework on the massive chimneys and--at the entrance--the hammered and tooled radial blocks of the arch, the carved door panels, and the “Victorian” hardware.The hooded third-story windows are decorated with stained-glass birds and flowers and are best viewed from inside the house. A large entrance hall provided access to all the main parlors and the dining room. The interior woodwork is cherry and oak.Sage became president of the Cornell Board of Trustees in 1874, when Ezra Cornell died. He made many financial and material contributions to the university including his house, which he willed to Cornell for use as a student infirmary. Sage’s wife died in 1885; he died twelve years later.The Mission-style addition on the northwest corner of the house/infirmary was built in 1925. The Cornell Press moved its offices to the building in 1993.LISTEN HERE
Schuyler House Addition
112 Sage Place, built in 1910-1911With the adjacent Henry Williams Sage House being used as the Cornell Infirmary, overcrowding became an issue and the Schuyler House served as overflow. Miller designed this stucco addition to connect the two buildings and provide additional beds for infirmary patients. Schuyler House and the addition are now Cornell student housing.LISTEN HERE
Caroline B. Wood House
505 East Seneca Street, built in 1885-1886Another building in the Sage family enclave, this home was built for Henry Williams Sage's sister, Caroline B. Sage Wood. Miller used brick on the first story and shingles on the second story. There are three kinds of spindlework on the streetside porch, and the porch’s orientation accommodates a right-angle entry, which was one of Miller’s favorite devices. Wood occupied the building until 1910. It was subsequently used as an annex to the student infirmary next door and later as Cornell’s Environmental Health Laboratories. It is now privately owned student apartments.LISTEN HERE
Samuel D. Halliday House
510 East Seneca Street, built in 1890-1891This home was built for New York State assemblyman, district attorney, and Cornell trustee Samuel D. Halliday before being purchased by William T. Thomas of the Thomas-Morse Aircraft Corporation in 1920. This three-and-one-half-story Shingle-style residence has a long sweeping gable roof that shelters a two-story extension on the east. The windows are rectangular and banded by wood belt courses. The building is now a private residence.LISTEN HERE
Original Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity
503 East Buffalo Street, built in 1878Built for the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity, this was the first building in Ithaca to be built specifically for a fraternity. When the fraternity decided to move closer to the Cornell campus in 1905, it sold the house for $9,000.What is especially interesting about the building is its complex roofline, with steeply pitched hipped section, hipped dormers, a tower, and a projecting central bay. The treatment of the entrance is unusual, with the chimney flanking the doorway and the windows above the doorway. The columns flanking the doorway have floral capitals, and a similar column separates the windows on the second story. All the windows have stone sills and lintels.Miller paid particular attention to the west side of the house. Here again is a central projecting bay. Above the three windows on the second story is a wide masonry cornice with brackets, which appears to support the gable. (The cornice has been partially covered by siding so you might not see these details.)LISTEN HERE
Charles F. Blood House
414 East Buffalo Street, 1873 (remodel)This home was originally a Greek Revival house built for merchant Charles F. Blood in 1868. The house was remodeled in 1873 by William Henry Miller, who made it into Italianate villa.Characteristic Italianate features include the extensive use of decorative brackets under the eaves, and the tall, narrow windows. What distinguishes this as an Italianate villa is the tower with its mansard roof and wrought-iron cresting.Attorney Charles H. Blood, son of the original owner, owned this house until 1920. It was later owned by art professor and painter Olaf M. Brauner.LISTEN HERE
Ithaca College President's House
2 Fountain Place, built in 1891-1892This home was built as a residence for Ithaca Organ Company owner and lawyer George R. Williams. It was one of the first houses in Ithaca to be wired for electricity. Ithaca College purchased the house in 1938 to be used as the official residence for the college's president. In 2017, Ithaca College announced it would discontinue using it as a presidential residence.This house is an excellent example of Richardsonian Romanesque architecture. The style bears some similarities to the Queen Anne style as you can see here in the cross-gabled roof, the dominant front-facing gables, the octagonal turret, and the building’s asymmetry. What distinguishes the style is the use of rusticated stonework, rounded arches over the doors and windows, the steeply pitched roof, and the building’s overall massiveness. The house is faced in grey sandstone. Notable features include the egg-and-dart string course and the arched windows in the prominent front-facing gables and the leaded stained-glass panels in the windows at the first story.LISTEN HERE
Finch-Guerlac House
3 Fountain Place, built in the 1840s; remodeled in 1874This house was a small Greek Revival cottage when it was built in the 1840s. A Gothic Revival frontispiece was added in 1851, and the house acquired its Queen Anne characteristics (some historians would describe them as Stick), which you see today, when it was renovated by William Henry Miller in 1874. Characteristic elements include the asymmetrical plan, complex roofline, projecting bays, octagonal turret projecting from the wraparound veranda, and decorative slatework and stickwork in the gables. Stained-glass panels on the south façade and the wooden railing of the verdana with its quatrefoil motif are also distinctive. Many external architectural features are echoed inside this well-preserved house.The house was home of lawyer and Cornell Law School dean Francis Miles Finch and Cornell history professor Henry Guerlac.LISTEN HERE
