SYRACUSE — Crews have finished work on the first phase of the project to preserve the Gustav Stickley House located at 438 Columbus Ave. in Syracuse for future use as a museum and hotel. The restoration of the home’s exterior now “replicates its design” when the craftsman furniture maker lived there, according to a news […]
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SYRACUSE — Crews have finished work on the first phase of the project to preserve the Gustav Stickley House located at 438 Columbus Ave. in Syracuse for future use as a museum and hotel.
The restoration of the home’s exterior now “replicates its design” when the craftsman furniture maker lived there, according to a news release from the Gustav Stickley House Foundation Inc. and the University Neighborhood Preservation Association (UNPA).
The two organizations marked what they call a “milestone” in the preservation effort with an event at the home held June 28.
UNPA is working with the Gustav Stickley House Foundation (GSHF), the nonprofit friends group created two years ago. GSHF says it is dedicated to planning and fundraising for the restoration, preservation, and interpretation of the house.
Gustav Stickley — who made and designed furniture and was a “major proponent of the American arts & crafts movement of the early 20th century” — owned the house from 1900 to 1911 and lived there again from 1919 until 1942, when he died.
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the home is widely regarded as the “first fully designed Craftsman interior in the country,” according to the news release. Much of Stickley’s interior design “remains intact” on the first and second floors, the organizations said.
The work
The first phase of the preservation project targeted the home’s exterior in the “plan to save the house, which had fallen into disrepair over the years.” The reconstruction of the original front porch, which was removed more than 50 years ago, represented a “significant part” of this phase.
The exterior work also included “extensive” repairs to the siding and trim, window restoration, structural stabilization, a new roof, asbestos abatement, and painting the house with the same colors that “extensive research determined” Stickley used on his home.
Fundraising is now underway for the second phase, which will focus on the home’s interior.
CNY Builder Services, LLC of LaFayette served as the general contractor for the exterior renovation. Crawford & Stearns Architects and Preservation Planners, PLLC, of Syracuse assisted with the project, including Randy Crawford as architect and Beth Crawford as project manager.
The L. & J.G. Stickley Co. of Manlius, which had owned the house since 1996, donated the Gustav Stickley House to UNPA, its current owner, two years ago. The furniture company had purchased the home to preserve its legacy and prevent the historic interior from being dismantled.
UNPA will eventually transfer the home’s ownership to the Onondaga Historical Association, which will oversee the house as a museum/hotel that will give guests the experience of spending time in the “historic living space that Gustav Stickley shared with his friends and family.”
Project support
The June 28 event included representatives of government agencies and other organizations that have “given their support” to the restoration project. They included a representative of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, the “major funding source” for the first phase with a $500,000 New York State Environmental Protection Fund grant as well as representatives of New York State Homes and Community Renewal who supported the project through a $200,000 Urban Initiatives grant.
“I rank this house on the same level as William Morris’s Red House in the U.K. and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Oak Park [Illinois] home and studio. This is where the craftsman lifestyle originated, right here,” Michael Lynch, director of historic preservation services for the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, said in his remarks to the gathering.
William Morris was an English textile designer, while Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect and interior designer.
Other organizations that provided financial support for the first phase include the Central New York Community Foundation; William and Mary Thorpe Charitable Fund; the Arts & Crafts Society of Central New York; a Preserve New York grant, a “signature” grant program of the New York State Council on the Arts and Preservation League of New York State; and the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Fund for Historic Interiors from the National Trust for Historic Preservation of Washington, D.C.
