214 Forest Home Dr Ithaca

Details
Address
214 Forest Home Dr Ithaca
Year Built
1835 (ca.)
Building Type
Residence
Construction
not specified
Description
As described circa 1990, this rectangular one-and-a-half story dwelling has a gable roof with returns, and a recessed enclosed porch on the south wing. Siding is clapboard, and windows are two-over-two double hung sash. Other notable features of the structure include the frieze windows and the front entryway with its flanking pilasters and overhead cornice.

Professor Wolfgang Fuchs, a former owner, suggested the house was built ca.1835. It has also been suggested that the house was built by mill owner Isaac Cradit or his son Jacob. The architectural style and design of facade are very similar to the one-and-a-half story houses built for mill workers by the Cradit family on the Byway in the 1830s.

The original house consists of the larger, rectangular wing. The smaller, southern wing was added sometime in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, itself being altered by the enclosure of the entry porch, date of which is unknown. A rear shed-roofed kitchen and shed are believed to be later nineteenth century additions; the kitchen addition being the old summer kitchen.

The house appears on the map of Free Hollow in the 1866 Tompkins County Atlas, labeled, "M. Cook." The house was occupied by Mr & Mrs Miles Cook, according to Albert Force in Free Hollow: The First One Hundred Years of Forest Home (1954) [https://www.fhia.org/free-hollow/] and ownership from 1865 is listed in the Appendix to Free Hollow to Forest Home by Liese Bronfenbrenner (1974) [https://www.fhia.org/free-hollow-to-forest-home-appendix/].

Included in Forest Home Historic District with USN 10906.000056. To access the Building-Structure Inventory Form (sometimes referred to as the "Blue Form"), from which many of the details above are drawn, including the estimated date built, follow these Lookup Instructions

Media (Photos, Videos, Audio Recordings)
Map of Free Hollow (now Forest Home) from the 1866 Atlas of Tompkins County.
[New topographical atlas of Tompkins County, New York. From actual surveys especially for this atlas. Stone & Stewart, Philadelphia, 1866]

Map of Free Hollow (now Forest Home) from the 1866 Atlas of Tompkins County.
[New topographical atlas of Tompkins County, New York. From actual surveys especially for this atlas. Stone & Stewart, Philadelphia, 1866]
1866 map

Add Source/NarrativeSources & Narratives
Conveyance documents for the purchase and sale of 214 Forest Home Drive by Nellie W Davis are not reflected in the list of owners in the Appendix to "Free Hollow to Forest Home" by Liese Bronfenbrenner (1974).  They can be found through the Tompkins County Clerk Online Services.

  1. BF127158-001 10/06/1944 Nellie W. Davis acquired 214 Forest Home Dr from Mary J Hart
  2. BF137981-001 6/10/1950 Nellie W. Davis sold 214 Forest Home Dr to Edmund L Pincoffs

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Nellie W Davis

Extract from On Childhood in Forest Home
By Randolph Scott Little

"After “graduating” from Cornell’s nursery school, I attended kindergarten through third grades in the Forest Home School, which is now the Cornell Plantations headquarters.  It had two classrooms on the upper level and a gymnasium below.  Mrs. Davis, Nellie Davis, was our teacher.  She lived at 214 Forest Home Drive across from what is now the Forest Home Park."

Nellie W Davis
Randolph S Little

Resident Household in 1950
NameSexAgeRelationOccupation
Nellie W DavisF62HeadTeacher in Rural School
Richard W DavisM19SonNone