219 S Albany St Ithaca

Source: Henry St. John Local Historic District Nomination, Sara Johnson and Kristin Olson, Historic Ithaca, Inc., 2012.
Description:
219 South Albany Street is located mid-block on a double-width lot on the east side of the street, occupying the largest lot on the 200 block of South Albany Street. The house is located in the southwest corner of the large lot. The house is a two-and-a-half-story wood frame house built ca.
1884 in the Queen Anne Style. It has a hipped roof with lower cross gables that create full-height projections at the north, west, and south façades. The house is clad in primarily in clapboard with wood corner boards and sits on a raised stone foundation. Windows are primarily 2/2; they appear in pairs centered in the gable ends, and singly on the rest of the house.
Gables feature carved vergeboards and tripartite windows under the gable. The tripartite windows have center pentoid windows flanked by lower rectangular windows. Gable ends are clad in horizontal flushboards with a wide band of vertical boards above a stringcourse capping the second story.
The west, primary, façade has a shed roof porch covering the entrance at the north corner and a shed roof porch on the south corner. Both porches feature decorative posts and a low balustrade with a cutout pattern. There are two shallow, shed-roofed, projecting bays on the north façade. The west bay is clad in vertical board with paired windows on its north side.
A gravel driveway runs from the street to a small, one-bay, garage in the southeast corner of the lot. A hedgerow separates the sidewalk from the large lawn occupying the north half of the lot.
Significance:
Contributing. Architecturally significant. Garage contributing and architecturally significant.
219 South Albany Street is architecturally significant as an excellent example of an early Queen Anne style house that incorporates elements of the Stick style in its verticality and abundant detailed wood decoration. The house retains a high level of architectural integrity. The small garage in the southeast corner was constructed between 1919 and 1929 and retains its architectural integrity as an example of an early automobile garage.
The lot is a combination of western parts of lots 27 and 28 of the lots laid out south of Green Street by Simeon DeWitt. These lots originally ran from South Geneva Street to South Albany, with a the house on each lot fronting South Geneva Street and barns or carriage houses located at
the rear of the lots along South Albany Street. Houses were built on the Geneva Street sides of the lots prior to 1851; these are now 216 and 220 South Geneva Street.
Charles M. Titus purchased lot 28, the southern lot, in 1871. He had already owned the property a few years earlier, then conveyed it to Charles E. Hardy in 1868. It was not unusual for properties in the Henry St. John district to change owners frequently, and many of the property transfers were among major landowners and business associates such as Titus and Hardy. Titus sold the lot to Oristus Gregory in 1872. Gregory purchased the lot to the north in 1881 and combined the two before selling the western half of the combined lots to Thomas G. Miller in
1884 for $5,500. It is possible that Gregory constructed the house prior to selling the property to Miller because the construction of speculative houses was common in the neighborhood.
Thomas G. Miller was a partner in Enz & Miller, a wholesale paper and stationary business founded in 1878. Prior to forming their own firm, the men worked for the Andrus & McChain printing company. Miller later formed T.G. Miller & Sons paper company, a business that operated through the 1990s. The Miller family retained ownership of 219 South Albany Street until 1987.
Alterations:
Sanborn company maps indicate that a small one-story porch was added to the north corner of the east façade between 1904 and 1910. The current owners constructed the small one-story bay addition near the east corner of the north façade in 2001.
Sources:
Bardin, A.G. 1872 Map of the Corporation of Ithaca, Tompkins Co., N.Y. Philadelphia: T.C. VanArsdale & Co., 1872. The History Center In Tompkins County, Ithaca, NY.
Burleigh, L. R. Birdseye View of Ithaca, N.Y.,1882. The History Center In Tompkins County, Ithaca, NY.
Ithaca directories, 1864-1981. Historic Ithaca, Inc., Ithaca, NY.
Sanborn Map Company. Ithaca, NY fire insurance maps, 1888-1961.The History Center In Tompkins County, Ithaca, 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: Section 1, left side (N), 1 story, non-combustible roof; 
Outbuildings: ; 
Porches: Porch 1, right side (S), 1 story, non-combustible roof / Porch 1, front (W), 1 story, non-combustible roof / Porch 3, back (E), 1 story, non-combustible roof; 
Other: ;