389 Brooktondale Road
This Second Empire-style house is distinguished as one of the only brick structures in Brooktondale. It was constructed in the 1870s or 1880s using bricks from John Mandeville's brickyard, which was located slightly west along Brooktondale Road. The availability of abundant lumber in the area made brick an unusual choice of building material, and the Second Empire style was also atypical for Brooktondale during that time. The house was originally owned by Mandeville, a prominent farmer and Caroline's commissioner of roads.LISTEN HERE
Brookton's Market
Constructed on the site of a former plaster mill, this building has been a store since its establishment by Frank Vorhis in the late 1880s. Frank Mulks became proprietor of the market in the early 1890s. He was also postmaster and ran the post office in the building. The store remained in the Mulks family until 1924, when it was purchased by Robert Tucker, who operated an IGA market until the 1940s. In 2006-2007, Avi Smith renovated the building and storefront, and his mother, Deborah Halpern, opened Brookton’s Market in late 2007. Aaron Snow purchased the business in 2013, continuing the Snow family’s long history in Brooktondale as owners of one of Caroline’s “Century Farms.”LISTEN HERE
Rosebarb Farm
From the mid-1800s through the 1940s, this property was the Landon farm. In 1880 Sextus Landon cultivated 19 acres of crops and maintained 8 acres of pasture. As agricultural practices changed, the Landon family also added a small poultry operation to the farm. The Queen Anne-style farmhouse was built ca. 1900 after the original Landon farmhouse burned. The Rosebarb Farm rental cottage on the property was built on the slab of the former Landon chicken house, bringing modern agritourism to Brooktondale. In addition to the gambrel-roof barn, the property features a wood silo.LISTEN HERE
573 Brooktondale Road
Built ca. 1804 for John Cantine, Jr., this was the first frame house in Brooktondale and was known locally as the “Mansion House.” Cantine operated the gristmill in the creek below the house; he cleared surrounding land for crops to provide work for the mill. In the early 1800s, the attic housed meetings of the first Masonic Lodge in Tompkins County. The house retains much of its original Federal-style simplicity, and its attic reveals early 1800s construction techniques and materials. The Queen Anne-style decorative gables and wrap-around porch were added in 1896. In 1808 General John Cantine was buried in the nearby Quick Cemetery, originally known as Cantine Cemetery.LISTEN HERE
577 Brooktondale Road
This Queen Anne-style house was built ca. 1895 for the Vorhis family, which purchased the gristmill operation originally established by John Cantine and later operated by William Mott. In the 1890s, the lower Vorhis mill had a per-day production capacity of 50 barrels each of flour and buckwheat, and the Vorhis brothers operated a retail store on East State Street in Ithaca. The house was designed by Walter J. Keith, a Minneapolis architect whose company sold plans by mail from the 1890s through the 1930s in the nationally distributed Keith’s Magazine. The house is Keith design number 148.LISTEN HERE
570 Valley Road
This elegant Greek Revival-style house features a colonnade of Doric columns and was built ca. 1835 forWilliam Mott II, whose small empire of mills, stores, and a furniture factory operated below the house along the banks of Six Mile Creek until the late 1850s. Mott’s sawmill may have provided much of the abundant millwork incorporated throughout the house, which was built in the most fashionable style of the time. The cupola offers a bird’s-eye view of Six Mile Creek, which presumably allowed Mott to view activities in his businesses lining the creek.LISTEN HERE
534 Valley Road
Carpenter Samuel Woodhull built this Italianate-style house ca. 1872. Woodhull lived in Brooktondale from the 1860s until his death in 1917 and likely contributed to the construction of many homes and businesses during the hamlet’s thriving post-Civil War decades. Evidence suggests that Woodhull also built the three Italianate-style houses east of the neighboring church.LISTEN HERE
535 Valley Road
This small, gable-front house above Six Mile Creek was built in the 1880s along with neighboring 539 Valley Road. Carpenter Samuel Woodhull owned the property and reportedly built the side-by-side houses for two Woodhull family aunts who did not get along. A later owner added the west wing and rescued the house from disrepair. Renovations reveal the charm of its modest original design and creative adaptations of its small interior spaces for modern living.LISTEN HERE
