Home for Charles H. Sedgwick

Like most of Joseph Silsbee's work, there is very little information regarding this home.   It was built for Silsbee's brother in law, Charles Hamilton Sedgwick and was located on James Street bordering what is now known as the Sedgwick Farm Neighborhood. Charles Hamilton followed his father's footsteps and was a lawyer.  With the rest of his family, he started the Sedgwick Farms Land Company and developed real estate on the land previously owned by his father, Charles Baldwin Sedgwick.  The only known image of the home comes from a company brochure.  

Silsbee would have been residing in Chicago at the time of it's construction in 1884 and its construction was overseen by Silsbee's Syracuse partner, Ellis G. Hall.    It appears to be a shingle style home with a small porch at the front and what appears to be a piazza on one side.  The roof has a unique double-gable, a motif also seen on Silsbee's Thomas Drummond Home, built about a year later.  The home was demolished, likely after 1925, when Charles died.

Trinity Episcopal Church

In 1874, John Magee Jr., head of the Fall Brook Coal Company and the Fall Brook Railway Company, died. In his will, he left $50,000 and direction for five churches to be built in the area occupied by his companies. Construction of the first of these, Trinity Episcopal Church, began in 1880. The following year, the modest stone church, designed by Syracuse architect, J. L. Silsbee, was consecrated.

A rendering of the church appeared in the “Building Budget” in 1884.

The church is constructed of locally quarried sandstone. A clover or trefoil motif is used throughout the building. It can be seen in the front gable as well as the belfry. On the interior, is also seen in some windows and on the base of the pews. The form relates to the church name as well as the Irish heritage of the benefactor.

Art glass windows on the interior were manufactured in England. A majority of the windows are green and red. A window on the west side of the nave serves as a memorial to Magee.

Speculative Home for Bertha Palmer

In 1883, Silsbee took a series of trips from Syracuse to Chicago, beginning working on one of his most significant commissions, the designs for the interiors of Potter Palmer's "castle".  Late in that year, he established an office in Chicago with talented architect Edward Kent as his partner.  By 1884, the firm was busy with commissions and though local newspaper accounts in Syracuse try to dispel rumors that Silsbee was moving to Chicago, by 1885 he dissolved his partnership with Syracuse architect Ellis Hall and relocated.

Many of these early commissions were speculative homes for Potter and Bertha Palmer near their own mansion in Chicago's Gold Coast neighborhood.  This building, one of these homes designed on speculation for Bertha Palmer, is the only known surviving Chicago building from these very early years, when Silsbee still resided in Syracuse.  It is also the only surviving building designed by the Silsbee & Kent partnership.

Illustration of the home as it appeared in the Inland architect

and a photograph of the home on HAARGIS.

The home has been significantly altered over the years but even with these changes, it is an excellent example of Moorish Style architecture.  One remarkable feature is the array of terra cotta on the building.  According to local newspaper accounts, Silsbee was the first architect to begin using terra cotta as decoration on residences in Syracuse.  The novel material allowed great possibilities for design, allowing the architect to design endless shapes and relief patterns at a relatively inexpensive cost.  By the time this home was constructed, Silsbee was exploring the limits of the material both for its physical appearance and its structural qualities.