300 Forest Home Dr Ithaca

The description in the 1991 Building-Structure Inventory form says, "This one-and-a-half story rectangular house has a single-story rear wing featuring a porch. Both sections of the house have gable roof, frieze and returns. The three-bay gable end facing south-west has an off-center entrance door with a three pane transom light. Windows are six-over-six double hung sash with shutters Inside the house there are original horizontal plank wainscoting, doors and hardware. ...
The rear wing, originally a pantry was converted into a kitchen, date unknown. Many original windows have also been replaced. The rear porch was rebuilt, imitating the original, in 1974. The original wideboard floors in the kitchen, exposed when linoleum was removed in 1984, were replaced with pegged cherry flooring. In 1988, new wood clapboard siding was installed on the garage to match the house."

The building was built ca. 1837 by William Criddle, who then ran an undertaking business from this home. Mr. Criddle also operated a cabinet shop, in which he manufactured coffins and furniture. The shop (no longer extant) was located adjacent to the house, just to the northeast, and may have been water powered. A mill race, today no more than a deep depression in the ground, runs between the house and Fall Creek. The property remained in the Criddle family until 1926, nearly 90 years.

This house was present and labeled with the name W. [ or Wm.] Criddle in early maps of Free Hollow, the name of the hamlet before it became Forest Home in 1876.   See, for example, 

Included in Forest Home Historic District with USN 10906.000068. To access the Building-Structure Inventory Form (sometimes referred to as the "Blue Form"), and from which many of the details above come, including the estimated year built, follow these Lookup Instructions.