217 Forest Home Dr Ithaca

This one-story rectangular building has a shallow hip roof, grouped windows, one-story portico, and clapboard siding. The property is bordered by Fall Creek at the rear. The slope of the property is such that the rear of the dwelling contains a full basement level as well as a first story level.

In 1850, John Popplewell purchased this property from Andrus, Gauntlett, McClair and Mack, owners of the paper mill located to the east on Forest Home Drive. It is believed that a house was constructed on the property at about that time. Popplewell was an employee of the Cradit turning shop, and was killed in April 1855 when the shop was washed away in the flood from an intense spring storm.  A house appears on the map of Free Hollow at this location in the 1866 Atlas of Tompkins County, labeled "Mrs. Popewell." 

In the 1920s, the present structure was constructed between the original house (no longer extant) and the road. It was directly across the street from Earl Northrup's store. At that time, Forest Home Drive had recently become a State Route, and a major thoroughfare. This new structure was used as a Texaco gas station, known as Jack Smith Service Station. Later, it became an ice cream shop operated by the Mattingly family, one of the few black families in the history of Forest Home. After they moved in 1928, a Mrs. Browning took up residence and operated a tea room in the building.

The structure was subsequently converted to residential use, and sold in 1950 to Dr. Ethel Little, a physician at Cornell's Gannett Clinic. At the time of the 1950 census, Dr. Little was living at the Forest Home Lodge, 210 Forest Home Drive. In 1973, the house was purchased by Cornell University, and used as a rental property. In 1983, it was sold under a land lease contract, whereby the house and all improvements were sold outright, but the land was retained by Cornell.

Included in Forest Home Historic District with USN 10906.000059. 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 estimated building date, follow these Lookup Instructions.

Other source:
For description of storm in which John Popplewell died, see Ithaca Journal, April 25, 1855, page 3, col 3. [https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=ija18550425-01.1.3]