211 S Albany St Ithaca

Source: Henry St. John Local Historic District Nomination, Sara Johnson and Kristin Olson, Historic Ithaca, Inc., 2012.
Description:
211 South Albany Street is located on the east side of the street, slightly south of Green Street. It is located on a narrow lot and its setback is consistent with the neighboring houses. A driveway runs along the south side of the house between it and its neighbor to the south.
It is a two-and-a-half-story, wood frame house constructed in the Stick style ca. 1880. It has a steeply pitched hipped with lower cross gables, gable dormers, and a prominent hipped roof tower at the southwest corner. The tower has triangular dormer windows on its west and south sides and small triangular window is at the peak of the central hipped roof. Walls are clad in asbestos shingle siding, but the original wood clapboards are visible on a portion of the house.
The raised coursed stone basement places the entrance of the house above street level. Windows are generally tall and narrow with original wood frames and slightly projecting lintels. The gables feature decorative trusses and roofs have wide overhanging eaves, exposing curved rafter tails. The gable-front section of the west façade has paired windows centered on both the first and second stories. A single small 1/1 window is located in the gable. The main entrance with glazed double doors is in the north corner of the tower bay. A porch with a trussed balustrade and diagonal supports covers the entrance.
An open, one-story porch covers fills the void between the gable-front wall and the wall of the secondary cross gable. At the north façade, single windows are in the second story and paired windows in the first. At the south façade, the cross gable projects near the east end of the house. Below the gable, the second story contains paired windows and a shed roofed bay projects from the first story.
A cast iron hitching post with an oval top and two hitching rings is located on the lawn between the sidewalk and street. A two-bay, side-gabled, single-story automobile garage is located at the southeast corner of the property; it was constructed between 1919 and 1929.
Significance:
Contributing. Architecturally significant. Garage contributing and architecturally significant.
Hitching post contributing and significant.
211 South Albany Street is architecturally significant as an example of a Stick style residence. The house retains its original form, massing and fenestration pattern. It decorative elements include trusses in the gable ends, exposed rafters with decorative tails, porch posts, brackets, and moldings. The application of asbestos siding over the original clapboard and corner boards and the removal of ornate brackets under windows impacts the integrity of the house, but it appears that the clapboards are extant under the siding. The garage is architecturally significant as an example of an early automobile garage.
This lot was originally part of 207-209 West Green Street, owned by Lucy and Morace Mack from 1856-86. The Mack family owned multiple properties throughout the Henry St. John district. In 1880, they sold a section of the south half of the property to Charles Gay, a teller at the First National Bank. The house was constructed ca. 1880 for Charles Gay and his wife, who resided in the house until the 1920s. The garage, like most others on the block, was constructed between 1919 and 1929.
Alterations:
The north porch may have been added to the house between 1893 and 1898. Both this and the south porch were first indicated on the 1898 Sanborn company map though it is possible that earlier maps were less accurate depictions of the property. Beginning in 1919, the Sanborn maps indicate the addition of a small porch at the south corner of the east façade, but this area of the house is not visible from the street.
Sources:
Deed records, Office of the Tompkins County Clerk, Ithaca, NY.
Ithaca directories, 1864-1981.Historic Ithaca, Inc., Ithaca, NY.
Levine, Jeffrey. Building-Structure Inventory Form for 207-209 West Green Street. Ithaca, NY: 1987. Historic Ithaca, Ithaca, Inc., NY.
Tompkins County Department of Assessment. Tompkins County tax assessment photographs, 1954. Historic Ithaca, Inc., Ithaca, NY.
Tompkins County, NY. Deeds and survey maps, 1850-2010. Office of the Tompkins County Clerk, Ithaca, NY.

Source of Building Data: 1910 Sanborn Fire Insurance Atlas;
Multi-Family Construction: ; 
Roof of Main Structure: Non-combustible; 
Additional Sections: ; 
Outbuildings: ; 
Porches: Porch 1, front (W), 1 story, shingle roof / Porch 2, left side (N), 1 story, non-combustible roof; 
Other: Bay 1, right side (S) / Sanborn shows this building as #21 S Albany St, probable transcription error;