The name on the original deed to this house is Beulah McGlachlin, who acquired the home after she was widowed in 1968. She lived here with her sons, Henry F. and Ambrose, and ran a boarding house. Buelah’s husband, Henry, an ironworker, labored on the Broad Street Aqueduct and became an artificer for the Union Army. Son Henry was a New York civil servant and a Rochester businessman (working as the western manager of the Still Stove Works), while Ambrose served as the Treasurer for the City of Rochester. In the early 1960s, the house was divided into five small units, possibly as rooms for RIT students. In 1972, a fire left a void from the rafters through the kitchen into the basement. Left vacant for 8 years, it was during this time that the original front doors went “missing.”
Brought to Rochester in 1970 to attend RIT, one of the current owners purchased the house in 1980, feeling fortunate that the structure had not been “remuddled.” After 5 years of faithful restoration efforts: removing plaster and lath, pouring a new basement floor, and rebuilding two chimneys—they moved in with one finished bedroom and a temporary kitchen in the front parlor. Care was taken to restore, retain, or replace missing house details. Every piece of door and window trim and baseboard was removed, stripped of paint, and carefully refitted. Reused, old “wavy” glass covers six parlor windows. All but three of the doors are original, and replacements are true to the home’s period. Porches are copies of the originals. New kitchen cabinets were designed to have a period look, and the pantry counter and drawers are part of an old, repurposed school desk. Early finds were the two globe lights from the 1970s and the leaded glass doors around which the pantry space was designed.
In keeping with the feel of days gone by, a portrait of the owner’s great-grandfather, David Clute (1854–1833), hangs in the parlor, a grandfather’s old phone remains in the kitchen, and a grandmother’s old Victrola sits in the dining room.
