Gridded Garden
Stop #07
124 Victoria Place
- Built: 1893
- Architect: Herbert L. Smith (builder)
This house was built and occupied in 1893 by a young lawyer, Herbert L. Smith, who was admitted to the bar that year. He rose in his profession to became the first attorney for Onondaga County and practiced law until his death in April 1953. During that entire time he and his wife, Jessie McEntee Smith, lived here, raising two daughters and a son. Smith was a life member of the Onondaga County Bar Association, and the Citizens Club. He was secretary of the Baumes Crime Commission and had been a member of the Courthouse Building Committee.
The eclectic house has a bit of everything: a Queen Anne style corner turret and projecting bays, a French Empire mansard roof, and an off-center but otherwise classically-inspired front porch with a Palladian arch carried on delicate Ionic columns and capitals (similar columns can be seen on the house next store, also built for the Smiths). The interior is full of fine spaces and ornate details, like a fine oak stairway with an elaborately carved newel post.