Peek inside this $1M Brockport mansion that has gone viral on real estate social media pages
John Barr remembers being enamored riding by a white mansion just north of Brockport village as a boy. He could only get a glimpse of the grand columns and facade when the trees were bare in the winter.
Decades later, Whitehall Mansion went on the market, the perfect chance to get a peek for fun inside.
"We were ready to buy the second we walked in the front door and saw all the rooms in there," said Barr, who purchased the neo-classical Greek revival with Marty Singleton and Dan Johnston in 2019.
Barr and Co. brought the property back to its early 20th century glory and have lived there since. They listed it this summer with Iggy Vaccaro of Keller Williams Realty Greater Rochester for $990,900.
“It's been fun. There's nothing we don't love about the house,” Barr said. “We decided to travel more and spend summer doing other things instead of loving our home.”
People from all over the world are loving the home after For The Love Of Old Houses, a Facebook page with more than 4 million followers, featured nearly 11-acre estate that was originally a dairy farm at 3845 Lake Road N. in Clarkson.
The viral Instagram page Zillow Gone Wild made a post about the house Sunday that has more than 25,000 likes. "TBH we haven’t seen a better home than this Brockport, NY home, also known as the Whitehall Mansion, for under a million dollars in a long time. The house has almost 9k sq ft on 10+ acres," read the post, which has more than 25,000 likes.
The three-floor home boasts a grand staircase, marble fireplaces herringbone hardwoods, a granite pool, a tennis court, orchards, and a four-car garage built a with a chauffeur’s apartment and Seth Thomas clock tower.
How did an extravagant 8,585-square-foot dwelling with eight bedrooms, five full bathrooms and two half baths emanate on the west side of Rochester in 1905?
A George Eastman connection.
The Gordons were a pioneer family in Brockport; Luther Gordon owned a massive lumber company and founded First National Bank of Brockport, which was the repository for Erie Canal tolls. His son, Fred, married into the Robinson family of East Avenue. They were friends with the Eastmans so renowned architect J. Foster Warner - whose works include the Granite Building, the Sibley building and Monroe County Courthouse in Rochester, took on designing the George Eastman House and Whitehall Mansion. Both homes were built in 1905.
“It’s the red-headed stepcousin of the Eastman house,” said Barr, who has been a good steward of its history, accumulating hundreds of documents, photos and stories.
Both houses are Warner classics with four pillars and gambrel windows, spindles on the railings that repeat every three with mahogany trim, dental molding and “Gilded Ave extravagance.” Whitehall was considered the finest home west of Rochester for the first half of the 20th century, Barr said.
The owners put in extensive work to make it a fine home for the 21st century, about $250,000 in all.
They replaced all 24 columns, reattached the second-floor porch with lumber milled in Holley to provide and exact match and rebuilt the terrace with Medina sandstone.
The trio installed and maintained all the landscaping and gardening themselves.
And the decorating. Oh, the decorating. They replaced the hot yellow that covered the walls for 50 years adorned the interior with Craigslist and estate sale finds to fit their unique styles.
Dozens of commenters on social media were curious about the elephant in the room.
Barr has a collection of small elephant figurines. He added a huge elephant for Whitehall Mansion. The Maison Albion mansion and wedding venue, formerly The Pillars party house, in Albion was selling contents of the estate and the owners bid on Gordon – that’s the elephant’s adopted name – and transported him home in a pickup.
The house has been an entertainers’ dream with two parlors, two dining rooms, two pantries, a library, family room. Singleton, who sang for more than two decades in the Metropolitan Opera, routinely serenated guests at Christmas and Halloween parties.
The triumvirate – the sixth family to own the home – has soaked up Whitehall Mansion history in its term. They’ve connected with people who were friends with the Gordons, who lived in the servant’s quarters, who played in the dovecot. A couple of years ago the Sagawa children who grew up in the house – Dr. Hidetaka Sagawa, who was chief of surgery at Lakeside Memorial Hospital, and his wife Patricia Sagawa lived there for three decades – visited Barr, Singleton and Johnston. The siblings took the current owners on a tour of the house through their eyes.
“It’s been a labor of love,” Barr said. “We’ve collected and saved everything we could get our hands on. We’ve tried to be good stewards and it will all stay here with the home. It’s a spectacular house."
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Brockport mansion with George Eastman connection listed for $1M
