Even after all the work Philip and Harriette Greaser put
into unearthing, stripping, and cleaning the woodwork in their house, they are
very forgiving of the people who at one time tried to cover it. “It was the
style,” Philip says. “You just didn’t want wood in the house.”
           The wood
— red birch in the kitchen, quartersawn oak all through the first floor, and
cucumber wood on the second floor — is the most noticeable characteristic of
the house now. And though the house was built in the late Victorian period, the
lines are clean and modern-looking. Burnished wainscoting, once covered with
green Marlite, lines the entire first floor of the house. A wood paneled
ceiling in the kitchen was uncovered from beneath acoustic tile. Paint and dirt
were stripped off the wood from the rest of the house, and now it glows.
           Harriette
believes that she and her husband were just lucky to buy the house in modern
times, when there are good tools and chemicals to cut the work. Without the
aggressive wood cleaners she has today, she can understand why someone would
just paint over kitchen woodwork and what must have been layers of coal soot.
           “They had
to clean London after they gave up coal,” she says.
           The 1893
house in Albion was designed by Andrew Jackson Warner, the architect who
designed the 1873 Rochester City Hall, among other things. It was commissioned
to be a manse for the adjacent Presbyterian church, and was used by the
ministers and their families until the ’60s. When the Greasers bought it about
17 years ago, it was being used as church offices, with a Head Start program
upstairs, and a “a printing shop for somebody” in the basement, Philip says.
           The
Greasers, who were retiring and downsizing (from the 20-room, 1820-era house
they owned previously), still wanted an old house, but one that didn’t need
major structural work.
           “The house
is plum,” says Philip, “It was just tired.” They had the plaster ceilings
redone (after watching their brand-new paint job peel and curl in two days),
they chose Victorian-era reproduction wallpapers to cover the rough, uneven
walls, they brought in period light fixtures, and glued in some panels that had
fallen out of the stairwell wainscoting. Masonry work was needed on the front
porch. They replaced the roof and put up interior shutters that had been stowed
in the basement. They replenished the soil in the garden — which was ashy
from the coal heat days, Philip guesses — and built raised beds. Last year’s
tomato crop yielded 38 canned quarts.
           The
Greasers have a copy of a 1894 newspaper article written about the house, which
made quite a buzz in its time. Not only was it a large, grand house, it was the
first house in Albion to be all-electric.
           “The
write-up in the paper says it was probably the best Presbyterian manse this
side of Albany,” Philip says. He can only speculate that the parsonage was
built so well and beautifully to reflect Albion’s status and wealth in that
time. “Albion was quite an early settlement,” he says. “There were a lot of
important people.”
           The house
is still a wonder. The architecture is beautiful; the construction is solid;
the period details add charm. An immaculate butler pantry gleams with shiny
wood cabinets. The barrel-vaulted fruit cellar keeps potatoes and onions fresh
through June. Speaking tubes — early intercom systems made of tin pipe in the
walls and mouthpieces in different rooms — still work. They are not as
helpful as they might have been with servants waiting on the other side, but
according to Philip Harriette’s piano students “are quite taken with it.” And
that counts for quite a lot.
This article appears in Oct 1-7, 2003.
