The William Henry Miller Inn
Prominent Ithaca architect William Henry Miller (1848-1922) designed this house, located at 303 North Aurora Street, which, from the weathervane to the wrought-iron fence surrounding the property, appears exactly as it did when it was built in 1880. The style is Queen Anne, which was popular in the Unites States from 1880 to 1910.Queen Anne houses are characterized by complex rooflines and asymmetrical massing. They typically have a round or angular tower, projecting bays, multiple gables, intricate porches, and multi-textured surfaces combining clapboard, brick, stucco, shingles, and/or stickwork. Many have stained glass windows.Distinctive features of this house include the tower with its iron weathervane, the iron snow eagles on the roof, the half-timbering in the gable ends and near the windows, and the brickwork on the chimneys. The carriage house, also designed by Miller, was built in 1892.The property was formerly the site of a tannery owned by Daniel Bates, the first president of the Village of Ithaca. Comfort Butler owned the other tannery in town. It was just across the street where Patterson’s Garage stands.Source: Historic Ithaca, Inc.LISTEN HERE
313 North Aurora Street
The house at 313 North Aurora Street had Eastlake detailing when it was built in 1890. William Henry Miller remodeled it in 1894, combining Queen Anne features like the tower with Colonial Revival details, including the paired Doric columns on the porch and Palladian windowin the main gable.The lion’s head medallion on the second story also makes this house significant. It is repeated inside the house on the original dining room table and chairs.The house was built for Charles G. Hoyt, a cobbler. Hoyt sold the house in 1902 to George Livermore, who founded Ithaca Gun Company. Livermore’s son Paul gave the house to the Ithaca Community Chest (now the United Way of Tompkins County) in 1952.The carriage house behind the main house is more elaborate than many houses built in the 1800s.Source: Historic Ithaca, Inc. LISTEN HERE
309, 313, 317, and 319 East Court Street
These Italianate houses on East Court Street were built between 1871 and 1873 on property owned by Joseph Lyons.Characteristic Italianate features include the tall, narrow windows capped by round arches and/or bracketed architraves; the wide, overhanging eaves; and particularly the decorative brackets supporting them. The Italianate style was popular between 1840 and 1885.The cupola on 309 East Court Street is also characteristic, as are the low-pitched roofs on three of the houses.The house at 313 East Court Street combines a mansard roofwith Italianate features and is a good example of the Second Empire style. The style was derived from the French architecture during the reign of Louis Napoleon and was popular in the United States from 1860 to 1880.The houses at 317 and 319 East Court Street were built on speculation by Lyons and sold at auction. The home at 313 East Court Street was built for John E. Van Natta, a carpenter.Source: Historic Ithaca, Inc. LISTEN HERE
314 East Buffalo Street
This Colonial Revival house was built between 1901 and 1903 for Herbert G. Wilson, a retailer of hats, furs, and men’s furnishings.The use of classical elements to emphasize a building’s entrance is characteristic of Colonial Revival architecture, and one sees it here in the paired, fluted columns on the porch, the swan’s neck pediment above the porch, the fluted Ionic pilastersat the second story, and the fan window in the gable.The style is typically more elaborate than the Greek Revival style, which also depends on classical elements. Colonial Revival houses may have double-hung windows with multiple panes in one or more sash (the house has stained glass panels), and they often feature elaborate surface ornamentation.Note here, for example, the floral swag on the pediment above the porch and the garland swag on the panel above the window at the second story.These embellishments are sometimes associated with Adamesque architecture, after eighteenth-century British designer Robert Adams.The Wilson house was built on the foundation of Ithaca’s First Unitarian Church, which was destroyed by fire in 1893 and rebuilt at the intersection of East Buffalo and North Aurora streets, near the William Henry Miller Inn.Source: Historic Ithaca, Inc. LISTEN HERE
3 Fountain Place
This 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, the complex roofline, the projecting bays, the octagonal turret projecting from the wraparound veranda, and the decorative slatework and stickwork in the gables.Stained glass panels on the south façade, and the wooden railing of the veranda with its quatrefoil motif are also distinctive. Many external architectural features are echoed inside this well-preserved house.Source: Historic Ithaca, Inc. LISTEN HERE
2 Fountain Place
This house is an excellent example of Richardsonian Romanesque architecture. It was designed by William Henry Miller and built in 1890.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 gray 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.The house was built for George Williams, who owned the Ithaca Organ Company. It was one of the first houses in Ithaca to be wired for electricity.Source: Historic Ithaca, Inc. LISTEN HERE
414 East Buffalo Street
The residence at 414 East Buffalo Street was probably a Greek Revival house when it was built for merchant Charles F. Blood (1826-1898) in 1868. The house was remodeled in 1873 by William Henry Miller, who transformed it into the style of an 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 (1866-1938), son of the original owner and developer of Cayuga Heights, owned this house until 1920.Source: Historic Ithaca, Inc. LISTEN HERE
409 East Buffalo Street
The house at 409 East Buffalo probably looked more like its Greek Revival neighbor at 407 East Buffalo Street when it was built in 1845. The house was renovated twice, however, and few original features remain.The rear portion of the house displays Italianate features, including a bracketed cornice and tall, two-over-two windows with bracketed architraves. These features date to renovations done in 1868, when the house was purchased by Charles. B. Curtis, who co-owned the Schuyler and Curtis drugstore.The Queen Anne features that dominate the house today were added in 1885. They include the turret and wraparound porch, the third story, and several decorative details including the window treatment in the double front doors, the combined use of shingles and paneling, and the elaborate raised festoonsdecorating the front-facing gables and the cornice above the porch.The house is called the Hinckley House after the Hinckley family, who owned it at the turn of the century. The property originally went from Buffalo Street to East Seneca Street and included a barn, which later became the Hinckley Foundation Museum in operation between 1969 and the 1990s.Source: Historic Ithaca, Inc. LISTEN HERE
417 East Buffalo Street
The main section of this Greek Revival house was built around 1834 for Anson Spencer (1809-1876), an editor and publisher and one-time president of the Village of Ithaca.The house--and others like it in the 400 block of East Buffalo and East Seneca streets--typify Ithaca’s residences from the early to the mid-nineteenth century.Characteristic elements of the Greek Revival style, which was popular from 1820 to 1860, include a two-story, three-bay structure with a low-pitched roof and a wide cornice, a front-facing gable with prominent cornice returns, and a main doorway placed at a side bay. Many houses had sidelights and a transom window around the front door.Anson Spencer and his brother Davis founded the Ithaca Democrat newspaper in 1828. Anson was president of the Village of Ithaca in 1853. He was also a charter member of Cayuga Fire Company No.1 and of Ithaca’s first waterworks company.Source: Historic Ithaca, Inc. LISTEN HERE
426 East Buffalo Street
Anson Spencer built this Italianate house across the street from his previous residence in 1869. Notable features include the modillion-like brackets at the eaves and the small, paired brackets supporting the window architraves.The house’s portico is unusual for the round arches enclosed by the supports on each side. These arches are echoed in the cupola windows and the windows of the double front door. Carved floral designs grace the doors’ wooden panels.After Anson Spencer died in 1876, his widow and daughters lived in the house well into the 1900s.LISTEN HERE
440 East Buffalo Street
This house was built between 1873 and 1874 for Judge Marcus Lyon (1827-1899). It is a solid example of late nineteenth-century architecture, blending Queen Anne features with Gothic Revival. (Some historians would call this house an example of High Victorian Gothic.)Gothic Revival architecture, popular from 1840 to 1880, is characterized by strong vertical proportions. Typical features include steeply pitched gables and dormers, pointed-arch window heads, and fancy gable and roof ornamentation including bargeboards, finials, and cresting.The brickwork, the iron cresting, and the elaborate porch spindles on this house have led some people to attribute it to William Henry Miller because these were some of his favorite devices.The house was purchased in 1888 by Jared T. Newman (1855-1937; an attorney and partner of Charles Blood in the development of Cayuga Heights) and remained in the Newman family until the 1920s, when it became the Sigma Alpha Iota sorority house for Ithaca College. It now contains offices and apartments.LISTEN HERE
105 Dewitt Place
William Henry Miller designed this Gothic Revival house, which was built in 1874 as a boarding house.The steeply pointed gables, the angular stick work, and the pointed-arch window at the second story bay (at the north end of the house) are characteristic Gothic Revival features. The full-height bay windows at either end of the front façade help to emphasize the building’s vertical proportions.LISTEN HERE
514 East Buffalo Street
William Henry Miller designed this house for the Reverend A.E. Goodnough (1855-1888), who was the minister for the First Unitarian Church in Ithaca during the late 1800s. Built in 1886, this Swiss Chalet-style house is probably the only one of its kind in this neighborhood.The style was introduced into the United States by Andrew Jackson Downing, whose pattern book, The Architecture of Country Houses (1850), described several Swiss models as “suitable for bold and mountainous sites.” Characteristic elements include a broad, low gable, decorative wooden brackets, and flat boards suggesting half-timbering.Miller was considerably involved with the Unitarian Church in Ithaca. He designed the original church building at the corner of East Buffalo Street and Terrace Place. When the building burned in 1893 he designed a second building, which the church still occupies, at the corner of East Buffalo and North Aurora streets.Miller donated his services in designing these buildings, and church historians believe he also donated the plans for Reverend Goodnough’s home.Reverend Goodnough, incidentally, left Ithaca after two years to lead a Unitarian church in Brooklyn. He died there on the pulpit at the end of his first sermon.LISTEN HERE
503 East Buffalo Street
The Alpha Delta Phi fraternity first occupied this building, which was designed by William Henry Miller and built in 1878. When the fraternity decided to move to the Cornell campus in 1905, it sold the house for $9000.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, too, 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
505 East Seneca Street
William Henry Miller designed the house at 505 East Seneca Street for Henry Sage’s sister, Caroline B. Wood (1826-1906). The house was built in 1886.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.LISTEN HERE
512 East State Street
Henry Williams Sage (1814-1897) was an ambitious eighteen-year-old in 1832, when he first came to Ithaca to work for his uncles in the canal trade. Forty-some years later, having developed a prosperous business empire in the meantime, Sage returned to Ithaca to accept a position on Cornell University’s Board of Trustees.When Sage moved 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 not only the twenty-room, English Revival house you see here but also a house for his son at 603 East Seneca Street, a house for his sister at 505 East Seneca Street, and a carriage 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.LISTEN HERE
103 Sage Place
Cornell botanist Liberty Hyde Bailey (1858-1954) designed this unusual house in collaboration with Clarence A. “Pa” Martin (1862-1944), dean of Cornell’s School of Architecture.Although Bailey had intended it to resemble a Swiss chalet, the house, which was completed in 1900, is actually a loose interpretation of the Mission style. Notable features include a low-pitched, overhanging red-tiled roof, freely arranged fenestration, and the diamond-paned windows at the second story.Bailey dubbed this area of East Hill the “banana belt” for its unique microclimate, which was warm and mild, for Ithaca. The house at one time was surrounded by extensive plantings that were suited to this climatic niche.Bailey’s daughter Ethyl owned and occupied the house until the early 1980s. Following her death, the house was converted to multiunit housing by the Novarr-Mackesey Construction Company, which won an award from Historic Ithaca for its sensitive treatment of this important building.LISTEN HERE
109 Sage Place
William 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
603 East Seneca Street
William Henry Miller designed this house for Henry William Sage’s son, William Henry Sage (1844-1924), who was best known for his role 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, varied fenestration, and multiple projections, including dormers, porches, and bays.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
423 East Seneca Street
William Henry Miller designed this house for John Barden (1825-1908), a one-time mayor of Ithaca.The house was built in 1873 and combines three late nineteenth-century architectural styles.Queen Anne influence shows in the asymmetrical massing, the diagonal corner treatment, the varied roof surfaces, and the diamond-shaped windows in the gable ends of the house.The decorative bargeboards, the horizontal banding between the first and second stories, and the tall paired second-story windows with pointed moldings are of Gothic Revival design.The front porch, with its paired columns, suggests Colonial Revival influence. It was added between 1904 and 1910.The Driscoll family, known for their work in masonry and contracting, owned the house from 1917 to 1967.LISTEN HERE
420 East Seneca Street
Only three families have occupied this house, which was built in 1864. This may explain why the house has retained all its original Greek Revival elements including the front-facing gable, the two-story, three-bay structure, and the off-center doorway framed by sidelights and transom window.Several houses on the block show similar stylistic origins, although most of them have been remodeled and are not as “pure” as this one. (See for example the houses at 424 and 408 East Seneca Street.)LISTEN HERE
109 Parker Street
This Greek Revival house is one of the oldest in the district. It was built around 1830 by missionary Samuel J. Parker (1779-1866) on land he purchased from Ithaca’s founder, Simeon DeWitt.The house has undergone substantial changes since its construction. Photographs from the 1860s depict the central section as having three full stories and three bays and a less steeply pitched roof. (It is now two-and-a-half stories high, with just two bays at the top story.)The photos also indicate a narrower door treatment. It is possible that the porch as well as the current doorway, including the rounded pilasters, the sidelights, and the fanlight, were Colonial Revival additions. The house had acquired its present appearance by 1954.Samual Parker was an itinerant missionary in western New York and the pastor of the Congregational Church in Danby for several years before he settled in Ithaca. He was educated at Williams College and had many scholarly interests.In the 1830s Parker traveled to the western United States, intending to bring Christianity to the Nez Perce Indians. Upon returning to Ithaca, he published his diary under the title Journal of an Exploring Tour Beyond the Rocky Mountains and organized a display of the rocks, minerals, shells, and artifacts he had collected and catalogued. His glossary of Indian dialects is among the earliest attempts to transcribe Native American language into written form.Parker’s land purchase from Simeon DeWitt in 1830 included nearly all the land between what is now Schuyler Place and North Aurora Street and between Buffalo and Seneca streets. The street you are standing on was built by Parker and given to the Village of Ithaca as a requirement of the land purchase.LISTEN HERE
112-114 Parker Street
This Gothic Revival house was built around 1853 for Henry S. Walbridge (1801-1869), a judge, U.S. congressman, and member of the New York State Assembly.Old photographs depict the house as a spectacular example of its style, with a clapboard exterior and ornate bargeboards on the dormers and gable.The house was shingled in 1950, and the bargeboards were removed in 1965. It is now a duplex.Features that survived the remodeling include the steeply pitched gable and dormers, the pointed windows in the gable, the finials at the gable peaks, the extensive use of bay windows, the paired diamond-shaped chimneys, and the label molding on the window above the bay on the north side of the house and the pointed molding above it.There are stained-glass windows on either side of the door at No. 112LISTEN HERE
310 East Buffalo Street
This house may have been a typical Greek Revival building in 1866, when it was owned by Ezra Cornell (1807-1874).The Italianate windows and the gingerbread vergeboard were probably added by John D. Carpenter (1812-1887), an undertaker and cabinet maker who bought the property in 1875.The porch and front entrance were added later.LISTEN HERE
