This house is located on a gravel extension of Crest Lane, a quiet cul-de-sac at the crest of Warren Road hill. The house is at the edge of a steep slope which drops off to the east. The house has large windows in the living and dining rooms to take advantage of the view towards Fall Creek and the Cornell Plantations.
This one-and-a-half story L-shaped house has a gable roof with central brick chimney. The rear wing features an entry with recessed porch, and serves to connect the house to the two car garage. The house is clad with aluminum siding, and windows are six-over-six double hung sash, with large single-pane fixed glass in the living room and dining room.
The land was once part of the Warren farm. The first major subdivision of the farm for residential purposes occurred ca. 1910 when the Halcyon Hill area was sold and developed. Then, in 1948, when Mrs. Mary Warren decided to retire from farming, she subdivided the area now known as Crest Lane, and had a house built for herself at the intersection of Crest Lane and Warren Road,
103 Crest Lane. She sold the farmhouse, barns and remaining acreage to her daughter and son-in-law,
Martha and
John Hertel. In 1978, the Hertels in turn decided to build a retirement home on part of the farmland near Crest Lane. Professor Hertel's brother Donald, an architect in New Orleans, designed the house, which was based in part on a photograph of an eighteenth century home in Pemaquid, Maine. When their new home was completed, the Hertels sold the old farmhouse and barns, but retained the remaining farmland. The house at 130 Crest Lane is the one that Martha and John Hertel had built for their retirement years. John Hertel died in 1986. Martha lived in this house until 1996, when she moved to Kendal at Ithaca.
This description is adapted from a provisional NYS Building-Structure Inventory Form (sometimes referred to as the "Blue Form") that was prepared as part of a Forest Home Improvement Association (FHIA) project completed around 1991. See
https://www.fhia.org/wp-content/uploads/BlueForms/130CrestLane_BlueForm_1991_sm.pdf[Note: This building is not within the
Forest Home Historic District.]