214 Forest Home Dr Ithaca

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 their 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/]. A teacher at the Forest Home School, Ruth Davis, resided here during the 1940s.

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.