Arts & Crafts Influence on 1000 Block of Ackerman Avenue

Syracuse, NY. 1015 Ackerman Avenue (1919). Photo: Samuel Gruber 2019.

Syracuse, NY. 1050 Ackerman Avenue. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2019.

Syracuse, NY. 1052 Ackerman Avenue. Clarence congdon, architect (?) (1910) Photo: Samuel Gruber 2019.

Syracuse, NY. 1061 Ackerman Avenue. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2019.

Arts & Crafts Influence on 1000 Block of Ackerman Avenue 

by Samuel D. Gruber 

Last week, in a post about bungalows, I mentioned a house at 1015 Ackerman Avenue, on Syracuse's Eastside. Joanne Arany, a former owner of the house, has been able to supply additional important information on the house history. 1015 Ackerman was built in 1919 based on a Sears Roebuck catalog house BUT it was NOT purchased as a kit house. There is no evidence of the stamping that Sears Roebuck would have made on the lumber, and there are some creative tweaks (a parlor was never built on the north side of the house that one would have accessed from the dining room - that big window on the driveway side).  Joanne thinks someone bought the plans and then built it locally. 

By the way, if you think you have a Sears House, here are some of things you can look forward to verify your suspicion.

Syracuse, NY. 1015 Ackerman Avenue (1919). Photo: Samuel Gruber 2019.

A closer look at the block shows that there are several houses that in one way or another reflect the Arts & Crafts aesthetic in a simplified form. Each of these houses has a different shape, elevation, and plan, and yet they all share characteristics that link them in a general way. Firstly, they are decidedly NOT Victorian, Colonial or Tudor in their look. There is nothing historicist about them, and this makes them decidedly modern for the early decades of the 20th century, the period in which they were built.  We'll take a look.

The 1000 block of Ackerman Avenue was part of the Westminster Tract which was first laid out in early March 1889. This tract is part of the original territory of the Onondaga Nation taken by the government to create the Military Tract which was divided for land grants awarded to Revolutionary War Veterans. Subsequently it was an agricultural area, including orchards and open land for animal grazing. Probably some agricultural use continued well into the 20th century, since much of the area was not developed for housing until after 1900, and in the area south of Euclid Avenue much of the development did not occur until after World War I.

As initially filed on October 7, 1889, the large tract extended from the west side of Ackerman Avenue in the west to the west side of Westcott Avenue, and from the north side of Clarke (now Clarendon) Street to the north side of Broad Street, and included two blocks on the south side of Broad Street from Ackerman to Lancaster Avenues. The tract included 681 lots and made use of the topography of the site, which includes a tall drumlin in the center. In 1891, the western section of the original Westminster Tract was divided off as the University Tract consisting of approximately 40 acres, and this included all of Ackerman Avenue.

Syracuse, NY. Westminster Tract Map, filed Oct. 7, 1889.

The 1000 block rises to the south from Terrace and Kensington Roads to Broad Street. With the exception of one brick house built before 1908, the block consists of frame single- and multi-family residences in variations of Craftsman, Queen Anne, Dutch Colonial, and American Foursquare styles. The houses on west side of the street are set at a level higher than the street and sidewalk and are reached by one and sometimes two sets of stairs. The houses at number 1040,1048 and 1050 are set back deep in their lots. All the west side lots back up against properties on Windsor Place in the Berkeley Park National Register Historic District.

Syracuse, NY. G.M. Hopkins, Atlas of the City of Syracuse New York, 1908, showing the University Tract, formerly part of the Westminster Tract. The 1000 block of Ackerman Avenue is at the bottom of this detail. In the 1908 Atlas Kensginton Road is named Waverly, and only a two houses are bult on the block.

Syracuse, NY. G.M. Hopkins, Atlas of the City of Syracuse New York, 1924. Here one can see that most hosues are built, but several will be filled in after 1924.

Joanne Arany has also pointed out to me the similarity between the bungalow designed by Clarence Congdon and published in the Post-Standard in 1910 and the house perched up the hill at 1052 Ackerman. The porch supports and porch roof have been changed but otherwise the features seem to match.  The location makes sense since Congdon was the developer of Berkeley Park, which this house abuts. He also developed houses elsewhere in the neighborhood and he seems to have liked high elevations, since he built his own house at the top of the hill between Sumner and Ackerman Avenues, on Clarendon Street, at the very northern limit of the Westminster Tract.

Notice of bungalow on Ackerman Avenue, The Post-Standard (September 17, 1910).

Syracuse, NY. 1052 Ackerman Avenue. Clarence Congdon, architect (?), (1910). Photo: Samuel Gruber 2019.

Here are pictures of some of the other houses on the street which also might have interesting histories. The even numbered houses are at the top of the western slope of the block, and we have to look up to see their details.

Number 1048 is a variant of the Craftsman cottage or bungalow, the form of which I discussed in my recent post about the 200 block of Strong Avenue, but which is a very common house type in the neighborhood, and by the teens of the last century was a popular model offered in Sears and other building catalogs.

Number 1050 is a fine Arts & Crafts variant on the Four Square House, and is distinctive for its wide eaves, varied window shapes and sizes, and its shingle siding.

Syracuse, NY. 1048 Ackerman Avenue. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2019.

Syracuse, NY. 1048 Ackerman Avenue. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2019.

Syracuse, NY. 1050 Ackerman Avenue. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2019.

Numbers 1026 and 1052 (already mentioned) appear to be one-story houses, variants of the bungalow or cottage type. All of these houses would have had good views to the east before local trees grew tall.

Syracuse, NY. 1026 Ackerman Avenue. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2019.

The houses on the east side of the street, like the bungalow at 1015, face the street with one-story facades, but they are built down the slope so they pick up space - mostly well-lit - in a lower story. Still, if you look at the very tall 1050 Ackerman, and the very low 1053 across the street, you will see they share similar roof designs, where a gable roof rises out of the hipped roof. This creates the impression of even wider extending eaves, especially in front, because we see them beginning within the roof, rather than just at the vertical plane of the house wall. 

Syracuse, NY. 1053 Ackerman Avenue. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2019.

Building down on the slope is especially evident at number 1061, which occupies a double lot, and where the southern flank of the house faces Broad Street just before it becomes Berkeley Drive. This lovely house with sure and simple lines exemplifies more than most houses a trend toward horizontality in residential design that, beyond the simple bungalow form, emanated from Frank Lloyd Wright and the Prairie School and was a variant of the Arts & Crafts Movement. Low and broad houses would not be prominent in the area, however, until after World War II. We can see many post-1950 examples along Meadowbrook Drive and across Meadowbrook in the eastern part of the Scottholm development.

Syracuse, NY. 1061 Ackerman Avenue. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2019.

Syracuse, NY. 1061 Ackerman Avenue. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2019.

Thanks to Joanne Arany and Bruce Harvey for information used in this post.