Selden Street, at the center of the Grove Place neighborhood, was named for the Selden Family. George Selden was perhaps the most famous among several notable family members. He held the first American patent for the Automobile. Although briefly successful in collecting royalties, Selden based his patent on outdated engine technology and that led to his loss in legal battles with Henry Ford and others. His presence in the automobile manufacturing industry was short lived.
Over the years a number of brochures have been produced on the history of the Grove Place Neighborhood. A number of these are reproduced below.
Grove Place 1827-1996
A Brief, Selected History
Grove Place is a National Register Historic District and a City of Rochester Preservation District.
1827
Josiah Bissell, the great Erie Canal engineer, purchases 100 acres and builds a home on a lovely small hill crested by a grove of trees, just to the northeast of Rochester’s new Main Street which ended where the Liberty Pole now stands. Cattle are the primary residents.
1830’s
Dr. Orrin Gibbs purchases the property, naming its western border for his father, establishing today’s Gibbs Street. Dr. Gibbs sells the property to Judge Samuel Lee Selden, husband of Susan Ward,
1840
Samuel Selden and Dr. Levi Ward, Sr., become the primary landowners and build homes and raise their families in Grove Place. (The Ward family was represented in Grove Place for nearly 150 years.)
1878
Theodore Bacon builds a row of six Tudor Revival townhouses for his family. They are the most architecturally significant surviving examples of 19th century row houses in Rochester.
George B. Selden invents the gasoline automobile in his uncle’s barn directly behind the townhouses. His patent, never put into production, ultimately produces rich royalties. The Selden car is introduced in 1908. Selden retires in 1911 when the U.S. Circuit Court relieves Henry Ford and other producers from obligations to the Selden patent
1909
The great Gibbs Street blaze damages 70 homes in Grove Place.
1914
The Young Men’s Christian Association builds on the site of Grove Street, a new thoroughfare cut through the Ward/Selden grounds.
1968
Melville C. McQuay, a longtime resident, and the Rev. Walter B. Freed, pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Reformation, establish the Grove Place Neighborhood Association.
1970’s
Grove Place Neighborhood Association initiates formation of Grovetown, Inc., a development company which purchases, restores, and sells more than 13 homes dating from the 1850’s. Two modern townhouses, adding a touch of 20th century flair, are constructed.
1980’s
The new YMCA Metro Center is constructed. On Selden Street, there is an enclave of new townhouses.
Eastman Place, built in 1988, is home to the Sibley Music Library of the Eastman School of Music/University of Rochester.
Behind the YMCA is the Eastman School of Music Student Living Center, home to more than 350 students.
1995
Construction of Symphony Terrace commences.
Grove Place Historical Tour
by Linwood Garrenton, November 2001
“The Grove”
In 1827 Josiah Bissell, Jr. and Ashbell Riley bought 20 acres of Enos Stone’s farmland northwest of the state road to Pittsford (now East Avenue). Bissell built a large stone house that he named “The Grove”. In 1832, Dr. Orrin & Wealtha Ann Gibbs bought the 8-acre “Washington Plat” bounded by Main, Scio, University, and Gibbs. He planted a grove of (fruit?) trees that failed.
The Ward Family Moves In
In 1836, the first members of the large, wealthy family of Levi and Mehitabel Ward arrived as their son Henry and his wife Elizabeth moved into a small frame house west of “The Grove” on Grove Street. In 1839, Judge Samuel Selden bought the “Washington Plat.” His wife Susan was a daughter of Levi and Mehitabel Ward who bought the “Washington Plat” in 1840, now named “Grove Place”, and moved into the stone house with the Seldens and other family members. Levi began building large brick additions including two Italianate towers until the stone house was quadrupled in size. He opened Gibbs and Windsor Streets to develop houses for his family and for sale to others.
Grove Place Grows
The only remaining Ward mansion, 18 Grove Place, was built in 1855 for Levi’s grandson Joseph. The 1875 plat map shows three Ward mansions between Gibbs and Windsor Streets facing their private park (called “Ward’s Park” in 1845). Theodore Bacon (whose wife Julia Selden was Levi Ward’s granddaughter) built the Tudor row houses on Gibbs Street in 1878. The 1888 plat map shows a new street, Grove Place, in front of the Ward mansions with gates at each end to express their objection to the city’s extension of Grove Street through “their” park. From 1888 to 1910, the Ward family built a block of row houses facing their mansions.
A New Century of Growth and Decay
In 1900 new commercial buildings lined Main Street. Some of “The Grove” additions were partially demolished because it was too large for smaller families. In 1914, the towering Central YWCA replaced both the original 1827 stone house and the middle Levi A. Ward mansion. Despite this, the Ward family still controlled enough property to force downtown to go around their residential enclave. However, by 1920 many houses were cut up into single-room apartments or were boarding houses. In the Great Depression, vacancies began and a few houses were demolished. Most of the demolition occurred in the 1960’s on Selden Street and University Avenue, just as restoration work began. Fire destroyed all but two of the Ward row houses on Grove Place in 1958. Surrounded by these changes, Clara Louise “Clayla” Werner Ward lived at 18 Grove Place for most of the century until her death in 1973 – the last of the Ward family in Grove Place.
Rebirth and Renewal
Grove Place Association, founded in 1968 under the leadership of Clayla Ward and Melville McQuay, fostered renovation of abandoned or cut up houses, established the Grove Place Preservation District in 1971, and got the remaining Ward Mansion, the Bacon townhouses, and the older carriage house designated as historic landmarks. New construction began to replace burned out houses and fill land vacant from demolition. After 30 years renovating continues and more new housing is proposed.
A Walk on Grove Street
Emmanuel Missionary Baptist Church was built as First German Lutheran Church in 1845. It became the Jewish War Veterans Post, then Emmanuel Church in 1993. Symphony Terrace townhouses were built in 1996-98 on the site of Siba Ward Smith’s home which Temple B’rith Kodesh replaced in 1893. The Temple was destroyed in 1909 by a fire that damaged 70 houses and 3 churches. The Temple was rebuilt, but destroyed by fire again in 1963. The land became a parking lot.
Across the street, St. Peter’s Presbyterian Church was built by Levi A. Ward in 1852 facing Gibbs Street, but it closed in 1923 and was demolished for the present parking lot.
A Walk on Gibbs Street
The site of the 1827 stone mansion “The Grove” is now Eastman School Living Center that in 1991 replaced the old Central YMCA’s tower built in 1914. The first houses to face Gibbs Street, #125 and #131-135, date to 1851. #128-152 are landmark townhouses Theodore Bacon built in 1878. By 1900, #137 (“The Skinny House”), #153, and the two doubles replaced frame houses built after 1851. #158 and #174 date between 1875 and 1888. #173-185 built in 1973 replaced a large, burned out brick house.
A Walk on Selden Street
#3-5 is the landmark carriage house for the Selden-Ward homestead. Here George Selden, Samuel Selden’s nephew, invented the internal combustion engine in 1879, but lost the patent to Henry Ford. Townhouses built in 1984, 1986, and 1989 sit on land once lined with frame houses demolished in the 1960’s. Only #14 built before 1870 remains.
A Walk on Windsor Street
The Adam Brown Building facing Main Street dates between 1875 and 1888. Its rear wing was built around 1910 as a repair garage. Downstairs Cabaret was built in 1924 for an auto tire business. Planned Parenthood occupied it from 1973 to 1987.
In the surviving Ward rowhouse at 15 Windsor Street, the Corner Club flourished during Prohibition as a drinking place for wealthy Rochesterians and visiting entertainers.
The Joseph Ward mansion (#18 Grove Place) was built in 1855. Its large eastern wing (#20) was added by 1870. The wood rear addition to #18 and projecting brick room of #20 date to 1915-20.
#34 and #38 (and a single frame house formerly at #30) were occupied in 1842, making them the earliest surviving in Grove Place. The double house #28-30 replaced #30 in the 1890’s. The lot between #44 (1857) and #56 (1863) is the only land never built upon. #60 was moved to this site in 1988 from old North Street.
GROVE PLACE NEIGHBORHOOD
By Betsy Brayer (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 1850, 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.
Grove Place 1827-1984
a quiet neighborhood of renaissance
In 1827, Josiah Bissell stood at the east end of Rochester’s new Main Street, the spot where the Liberty Pole now stands. Looking to the north, he noted a lovely small hill crested by a grove of trees. Soon, that hill was the site of Josiah Bissell’s home, the first residence in what was to become known as the neighborhood of Grove Place.
It was the early nineteenth century. Animals outnumbered people in some neighborhoods. And for a time on Josiah Bissell’s 100-acre tract, cattle were the primary residents, roaming over the rolling meadows. Before the century progressed very far, however, Grove Place became home to some of Rochester’s most prominent and noteworthy citizens.
Dr. Orrin Gibbs, for example. A prominent physician, Dr. Gibbs named the west boundary of his property for his father, establishing today’s Gibbs Street, address of the Eastman Theatre and one of Rochester’s most attractive residential neighborhoods.
Later in the century, George B. Selden developed the first internal combustion engine in his Uncle Samuel Selden’s carriage house located in Grove Place. After a lengthy legal battle, the patents for Mr. Selden’s engines were awarded to Henry Ford. But today, the attractive street where Uncle Samuel’s carriage house stood is named Selden Street.
And while George B. Selden contributed notably to the family name, it was Uncle Samuel Selden and Levi Ward, Sr., who most dramatically influenced the character of Grove Place during the nineteenth century and beyond.
From 1840, when the two became the primary landowners in the area, the descendants of the Ward and Selden patriarchs built gracious homes and raised their families in Grove Place for more than a century.
One of these descendants—a Grove Place citizen—was Levi Ward, Jr., first president of the free school system and one of Rochester’s first mayors.
The Ward family was represented in Grove Place for nearly 150 years—an era that ended in 1973 with the death of Mrs. Hawley Ward.
In fact, Clayla Werner Ward—one of Rochester’s most active and visible citizens—spent most of her life in the home at 18 Grove Place, almost directly behind the MetroCenter YMCA. The house, one of the oldest in the neighborhood, dates to 1850. Along with Levi Ward’s former home at 164 Gibbs Street, renovated in 1974, Mrs. Ward’s house stands as a tribute to the families that dominated what is now the Grove Place neighborhood.
Religion also played a significant role in the development of Grove Place. In an era when churches were centers of community influence, Grove Place built four in an area encompassing five square blocks.
In 1836, the Mount Hope Nurseries’ George Ellwanger was one of the founding members of the Zion Lutheran Church. The church still stands on Grove Street as the Jewish War Veterans David J. Kauffman Post.
In 1852, Levi Ward funded the building of St. Peter’s Presbyterian Church on the southwest corner of Gibbs and Grove. Although the congregation dissolved in 1923, the bells that summoned Grovetown parishioners for more than half a century ring today from the Colgate Rochester Divinity School. Temple B’rith Kodesh built its first synagogue in Grove Place at the corner of Gibbs and Grove Streets in 1893.
Sixteen years later, the temple was destroyed by the great Gibbs Street blaze of 1909. Three other Grove Place churches and 70 homes were damaged by the fire as 40 mile-per-hour winds carried the flames through Grove Place.
Amidst the rebuilding, yet another institution came to Grove Place—the Young Men’s Christian Association. The original “Y”, built in 1914, still stands behind the new Chester F. Carlson MetroCenter YMCA completed in 1983.
Like many Rochester neighborhoods, Grove Place— temporarily forgotten during the mid-twentieth century—has been rediscovered. The efforts of past and present residents, as well as those of the City and the Downtown Development Corporation, have combined to erase signs of urban wear.
The Grove Place Neighborhood Association, initiated in 1968 by the late Melville C. McQuay, a longtime resident, and the Rev. Walter B. Freed, pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Reformation, has been active in preserving the historical ambiance of the neighborhood. Fittingly, Clayla Werner Ward was the association’s first president.
The Neighborhood Association was instrumental in forming a development company, Grovetown, Inc., as a vehicle to purchase, restore and sell its nineteenth—century homes to a new generation of downtown living devotees. Since the corporation was formed, more than 13 homes dating from the 1850’s have been restored.
Several of Grove Place’s most notable residences—the townhouses at #128-#152 Gibbs Street and the carriage house at #3 and #5 Selden Street—have been recognized as historic landmarks. Although not a landmark, the “skinny house” at 137 Gibbs Street remains a local attraction, noted for its 15—foot width.
The new YMCA building and modern townhouses at #173 and #175 Gibbs Street, along with the recently completed townhouse residences on Selden Street, have added a touch of 20th century flair and contemporary urban landscaping to Grove Place. Combining a rebirth of nineteenth-century stateliness with an eclectic touch of contemporary design, Grove Place celebrates this Sesquicentennial year much as it celebrated the City’s first birthdays—as a thriving downtown neighborhood.
(Today, the Grove Place neighborhood is bordered by Main Street on the south, Delevan Street on the north, Scio on the east, and North Street and Liberty Pole Way on the west.)