222 S Geneva St Ithaca

Street Address History:
Earlier street address 40 S Geneva St.
The city renumbered its streets in 1899 using the hundred block system (see Crandall City Engineering Map, 1899).

Source of Building Data: 1910 Sanborn Fire Insurance Atlas;
Multi-Family Construction: ; 
Roof of Main Structure: Non-combustible; 
Additional Sections: Section 1, back (W), 2 stories, non-combustible roof / Section 2, back (W), 1 story, non-combustible roof / Section 3, partial back (W), 1 story, non-combustible roof; 
Outbuildings: ; 
Porches: Porch 1, front (E), 1 story, non-combustible roof / Porch 2, back (W), 1 story, non-combustible roof; 
Other: Bay 1, Section 1 front (E);

Source: Henry St. John Local Historic District Nomination, Sara Johnson and Kristin Olson, Historic Ithaca, Inc., 2012.
Description: 
222 South Geneva Street is located mid-block on the west side of the street. The McGraw House assisted living facility is located across the street to the east. It is a two-story wood frame house built in the Italianate style ca. 1865. The wide and deep house covers most of its narrow lot. The house is rectangular in plan with a two-story, bay-front wing on the south and lower additions on the west that extend the line of the north façade to the west. A flat-roofed, one-story, full-width porch extends across the east, primary, façade.
The three-bay wide house has a flat or very low-pitched hipped roof with a central hipped-roof square cupola. Both the main section of the house and the cupola have deeply overhanging eaves with regularly spaced paired Italianate-style wood brackets. The cupola brackets are a scaled down version of the primary brackets. Each side of the cupola has a group of three tall, narrow, round arch-topped windows and a tall, tapered finial extends up from the center of the cupola.
Walls are clad in asbestos shingle siding and the foundation is stone. The east porch has a brick base. Windows are 2/2 and are topped with slightly projecting lintels supported by pairs of brackets that are scaled down versions of the roof brackets. The main entryway is in the south bay of the east façade. The slightly recessed doors have a top light and are flanked by an Italianate-style paneled door surround.
The north façade runs seven bays deep with regularly spaced windows. A lower, flat roof addition projects to the west from the west façade.
The south façade has a double deck bay window addition projecting south from the center of the façade. The three-bay window faces east. There are pairs of brackets between the first and second stories of the window and under the flat roof of the addition. A paved driveway runs along the south façade, terminating at the bay window.
Significance: 
Contributing. Architecturally significant.
222 South Geneva Street is architecturally significant as an example of a substantial Italianate style residence. Though clad in asbestos siding, it retains a high level of architectural integrity, retaining its original form and massing, large cupola, decorative wood brackets, windows, doors, 
and door surround.
The house is on portions of lots 28 and 29 of the lots laid out south of Green Street by Simeon DeWitt. The 44’ wide property originally extended from Geneva Street to Albany Street. The lot was subdivided in east and west lots in 1919.
The house was built for Abel Burritt, who owned the property from 1835-88; Susan Burritt owned it from 1888-1919. The date of construction is not known, but a house is shown on the map of Ithaca in the 1866 Atlas of Tompkins County. Abel Burritt was a real estate agent, fire and life insurance agent, and a notary public.
The Practical Business School was located on the first floor in 1929. From 1934-45, the house was owned by the Ladies Union Benevolent Society, who owned other properties in the district and currently own 213 South Geneva Street. The 1961 Sanborn map indicates that the house had been divided in multiple apartment units.
Alterations: 
The Ithaca Daily Journal reported in 1888 that the house was having an addition constructed, but the Sanborn maps do not indicate the construction of an addition between 1888 and 1893; they do indicate that the bay window was added between 1893 and 1898. The full-width east porch was added between 1954 and 1975, replacing a single-bay portico constructed between 1904 and 1910.
Sources: 
Ithaca Daily Journal, August 29, 1888. 
Ithaca directories, 1864-1981. Historic Ithaca, Inc., Ithaca, NY. 
Levine, Jeffrey. Building-Structure Inventory Form for 222 South Geneva Street, Ithaca, NY: 1987. Historic Ithaca, Inc., Ithaca, NY. 
Photograph of 222 South Geneva Street, July 1975. 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.