The David Phillips, Sr. house is Bradford’s most distinctive high style Queen Anne mansion said to have been built in 1889.
Mr. Phillips was born in England in 1845 and arrived in Bradford in the 1880’s to set up a machine shop for the oil business.
He soon amassed a fortune and built this house for himself and his wife. Unfortunately, he died in California in 1895 while trying to recover from tuberculosis.
The Phillips House features all of the hallmarks of the style such as towers, turrets, stained glass, organic, flowing, asymmetrical massing, and profuse ornamentation inside and out. Architect is unknown but likely came from nearby Buffalo, NY or Erie, PA.. An early photo of the house shows a window where the fire escape door is now on the gable.
It also shows an ornamental projecting window hood to the right of the gable, now missing. (an early Congress St. postcard was recently purchased and will soon be posted in this set) Houses of this type were once fairly common but are now somewhat rare. It was bought in 2009 by an e-Bay architectural salvage dealer and it’s fate is unknown.
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