Preservation Buffalo Niagara is recognizing outstanding preservation projects and those contributing to preservation efforts at its annual awards ceremony May 30, 11:30 AM in the Statler’s Golden Ballroom. Award categories were established to acknowledge distinguished contributions to our community through preservation activity. Recipients will be recognized in several areas including: preservation craft; rehabilitation/adaptive use; stewardship; neighborhood conservation; planning/reconstruction; and preservation journalism. Buffalo Rising will profile this year’s winners leading up to the May event.
The Nathan Comstock Jr. House in Lockport is being recognized in the ‘Preservation Spirit’ category.
While the house at 299 Old Niagara Road is on the state and national historic registry for its “Comstock” stone portion, (shortly after its construction there was a wooden addition added to the side of the residence) the entire house is historic, being owned by many ‘famous’ people, the title reads like a who’s who of state history, with the likes of Governor Washington Hunt owning it as well as John Hodge of Hodge Opera House fame. It was also owned (second or third owner) by Congressman Lewis Eaton.
The Hoag family also owned the property and somewhere on the property the Niagara Grape was developed by Hoag and Wheaton Clark. Grape vines still exist on the property.
The original parcel of land extended across Route 78 (Transit/Lake Road and this is where Nathan Comstock’s original log cabin was built along with the first apple orchard in the area). There are rumors of the house being on the underground railroad route from Batavia to Lewiston and stories of slaves being hidden in wells and caves on the property.
In about 1900 it was bought by the Odd Fellows to use as an orphanage. At this time a large brick addition was added onto the back of the residence. It operated as an orphanage until about 1940 and was then sold to Camille Geary, who planned on renovating it.
Geary died before she could follow through on the renovation plans and Josephine Carveth inherited it (one of the current owner’s great grandmother). She allowed a good friend of hers, May Staunton, to live in the house for many years. (May Staunton was married to Buffalo Bill Cody’s manager and was involved with Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus).
By the time current owners Carrie and Dan Jones bought the house it was in terrible condition, having been neglected and abandon from sometime in the mid to late 1980’s until 2011. The gas company said last time gas was on there was in 1985.
The windows were broken and destroyed, doors kicked in, and plywood covered the openings. There were animals living in the house, bats, mice, squirrels, raccoons, skunks, birds and bees. Humans were squatting there destroying and vandalizing anything they could.
Once 20 years of debris was removed, all that was essentially left was a shell to rebuild. The bones of the house were in very good shape however. Comstock’s brother Zeno built the first sawmill in Lockport and it is almost a sure bet his brother’s house was built from timbers milled there. Timbers are oversized, long spans causing the home to not have any load-bearing walls.
The large brick addition was also very well built having concrete floors and again using long spans of rafters, causing that portion to also not have any load-bearing internal walls.
From Dan Jones:
After our engineering assessment we had Patterson General Contracting give us an estimate and work began. Here is what was done:
We worked with an architect to design some new living space in the brick addition, adding bathrooms, closet, bedroom, etc. The Comstock portion layout remains unchanged from its original design.
All new electrical wiring was run, all new plumbing run, drywall was installed as most of the walls were destroyed, new paint. We were able to salvage some lighting fixtures that were, cleaned up, re-wired and reused along with an old claw foot tub old toilet and sink.
The wooden addition at some point in the 1980’s had its porch enclosed with some awful looking sliding glass doors installed, we un-enclosed the porch and using some old post cards of the Odd Fellows Orphanage turned it back into an open porch, like it should have.
On the back of the wood addition, we extended it out about 10ft to accommodate a garage, it was already wide enough. We installed a 95% efficient boiler furnace and had to re-run all those lines as most of the metal was stolen for its scrap value over the years.
Insulation was installed, for what looks to be the first time in the home’s history.
My father-in-law Russ Carveth had the historic front door sent out to be restored as well as possible. We installed 40 new windows, due to the fact that the window holes were covered in plywood or just gaping open to the elements. Original wood floors were retained where possible, sanded, patched and painted.
I am sure I am leaving things out that was done, but with a project this size there was much done.