(Noted local writer and co-author of “Of Town and The River”)
Preservation
by continued use is the hallmark of the Grove Place neighborhood. Successive
architectural idioms have maintained the essential harmony and dignity as well
as the Nineteenth Century residential flavor of the area. Six contiguous
townhouses on Gibbs Street, with carriage house and delightful walled gardens
off Selden Street were built in 1878 by one Theodore Bacon (who married Julia
Selden) for members of his family. Now separate apartments, the townhouses
remain the surviving local example of Tudor Revival row houses, a fashionable
eclectic style which melded Elizabethan England with Victorian America.
This
small downtown residential enclave, notable for its proximity to the center
city and now protected as the Grove Place Preservation District, has persisted
as a pleasant neighborhood since pioneer days. Early settler Deacon Gibbs, his
sons George, a Genesee miller, and Orrin, a physician and druggist, are
immortalized by Gibbs Street. Grove Place itself, named for the stand of trees
which acted as buffer to Main Street, was home to the large Selden, Ward,
Slocum, and Douglas clans. Selden, automobile inventor and patent attorney, had
George Eastman climb his stairs to learn a new photographic process. Eastman
pronounced the view beautiful and forty years later built a theater and music
school to enjoy it.
Across
Gibbs Street, a noted design firm now occupies the wonderful “Skinny House,”
exemplifying the discreet mixed-use character of the enclave today. At the
University Avenue end of Gibbs Street, striking, yet adaptive contemporary
townhouses and offices designed by Robert Macon have risen on the site of
earlier structures razed by fire. They blend beautifully with the older
buildings. By contrast, the oldest building in Grove Place is the ancestral
Ward House, circa 1 850, which served for a time as the headquarters of The
Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. This handsome Italianate house remains an
exceptional example of period taste and craftsmanship.
Most
recently, elegant street improvements — in paving, planting, and lighting —
have made this tiny gem of downtown living ever more agreeable and convenient.