The undersigned urge members of the Syracuse Common Council to designate the former Estabrook Mansion a locally protected site under the city's Landmark Preservation Ordinance.
Historic designation for the house at 727 Comstock Ave has already been unanimously recommended by both the Syracuse Landmark Preservation Board and the Syracuse Planning Commission.
Syracuse University is requesting to demolish the house to provide one part of a larger site for a new student residence hall. The university would excavate the entire Comstock lot to lower its level by several feet relative to the properties on either side.
The former Estabrook Mansion meets three of the city's criteria for designation:
Criterion 1 - It is associated with persons or events of historic significance. Charles Estabrook and his wife Laura Estabrook commissioned construction of the house in 1905 and lived in the house for 18 years. Charles Estabrook was the senior member of the law firm of Estabrook, Burns, Hancock and White, one of the largest firms in the city. Estabrook was a former president of the Syracuse Home Association, a president of the former University Hospital of The Good Shepherd and a director of the Syracuse Foundation.
Criterion 2 - Illustrative of historic growth and development of the city. The Estabrook house is an example of the growth and development on the city's eastside in the late 19th and early 20th century. Residential enclaves near Syracuse University attracted and encouraged affluent professionals like the Estabrooks to build large-scale homes in the Comstock Avenue and Walnut Avenue areas.
Criterion 3 - Embodying distinctive characteristics of a type, period or method of construction or representing the work of a master, or possessing unique architectural and artistic qualities. The house was designed by the local architectural firm Gaggin & Gaggin which also designed Lyman Smith Hall (Syracuse University), Machinery Hall (Syracuse University) and the Masonic Temple Building (Montgomery Street), and residential structures such as the Horace Wilkinson House (Walnut Avenue), and the Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity/Goldstein Alumni and Faculty Center. Gaggin and Gaggin designed the 38-story Smith Tower in Seattle which, when in was completed in 1914, was the tallest buidling in the country outside New York.
The Landmark Preservation Board has determined that the Estabrook house retains sufficient historic integrity of location, design, workmanship, materials, setting, feeling and association to convey its historic and architectural significance.
