314 East Buffalo Street

This Colonial Revival house was built between 1901 and 1903 for Herbert G. Wilson, a retailer of hats, furs, and men’s furnishings.

The use of classical elements to emphasize a building’s entrance is characteristic of Colonial Revival architecture, and one sees it here in the paired, fluted columns on the porch, the swan’s neck pediment above the porch, the fluted Ionic pilasters at the second story, and the fan window in the gable.

The style is typically more elaborate than the Greek Revival style, which also depends on classical elements. Colonial Revival houses may have double-hung windows with multiple panes in one or more sash (the house has stained glass panels), and they often feature elaborate surface ornamentation.

Note here, for example, the floral swag on the pediment above the porch and the garland swag on the panel above the window at the second story.

These embellishments are sometimes associated with Adamesque architecture, after eighteenth-century British designer Robert Adams.

The Wilson house was built on the foundation of Ithaca’s First Unitarian Church, which was destroyed by fire in 1893 and rebuilt at the intersection of East Buffalo and North Aurora streets, near the William Henry Miller Inn.

Source: Historic Ithaca, Inc.

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