This one-and-a-half story Colonial Revival house has a gable roof and stucco exterior. A small, one-story wing extends to the south. The center entry is surrounded by pilasters and a half-circle arch. The door itself has a leaded fanlight and sidelights. First floor windows are six-over-six double hung sash. Decorative ironwork is used for a grill over an upper story window, as well as for decorative window shutters and a second story balustrade railing.
According to local historian Albert Force, this house was built for Kenneth Washburn and his uncle, Wallace Washburn, in 1939. Kenneth Washburn was a painter and professor of fine arts at Cornell University. In 1929, he and his wife Helen Washburn had purchased the neighboring VanNatta-McIntyre property at 112 Judd Falls Road; that property has remained in their family since that time. It would seem that Washburn built this house at 116 Judd Falls Road as an investment, rather than as a primary residence.
According to local builder and neighbor Andrew McElwee, the building was designed by architect Sherwood Holt and built by William McElwee, Sr. According to city directories, Holt was an architect in the Ithaca area between ca. 1940 and 1960. William McElwee was a contractor who lived in Forest Home and built many houses there in the early twentieth century.
Included in
Forest Home Historic District with USN 10906.000177. 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 year built, follow these
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