Architecture Around the World

Corporal Hyde House
at Genesee Country Village, & Museum

Built:

c. 1870

Style:

Octagon

Original location:

Friendship, NY

Original owner:

Corporal Hyde

TEXT Beneath Illustrations



Click on illustrations for larger size -- and additional information

Original metal fence

Octagon style house

Finial atop octagonal cupola (belvedere)

Italianate brackets

Italianate brackets

 

 

 

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Entrance hall - Italianate newel post and balustrade

Parlor

Rococo Revival parlor center table

Living room

Detail from previous photo

Rococo Revival style sofa

Renaissance Revival style

Empire style dining room chairs in klismos shape

Marble fireplace (door missing)

Marble fireplace detail

Secretary

Secretary teardrop pulls

When Corporal Hyde returned to Friendship, New York after the Civil War, he briefly resumed farming; acquired an interest in a shingle mill; a young wife; and a new octagonal house. He and his wife shortly joined a spiritualist group.

Hyde later became a homeopathic physician. Julia, an accomplished musician and an ordained Methodist minister, held seances (it was said) in her parlor. When Julia died within two days of her husband, the belief even among sensible people arose that their departed spirits frequented the old, oddly-shaped house.

-- Genesee Country Village, by Stuart Bolger, 1993


Special thanks to Public Relations Manager Katie DeTar and the many helpful docents for their assistance
Photos and their arrangement © 2005 Chuck LaChiusa
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