What is now Park Place was once the Herdic House Hotel. It was built in 1864 by our boy, Peter. Designed by Eber Culver (of course). Herdic commanded Culver to style the hotel in the same vein as the finest hotels in the United States. A fine example of Italianate architecture, the hotel served as both a hotel and a train station. Herdic convinved the PA Railroad to move its station behind the hotel. In the 1940s, robbed of its former glory, the hotel became a retirement home. It now houses offices.
Current Peter Herdic InnAs we walked down Millionaire's Mile, there was an incredible number of Victorian homes. Some were residential; some were used for offices; some were museums; others were torn down to make space for other buildings. This wasn't like Bellefonte, however, as there were many more houses and a wider and longer avenue of homes. The main planners of West Fourth Street, Peter Herdic and Eber Culver (architect from Ithaca, NY), built the majority of homes on the street. Eber Culver built a plethora of homes and buildings: GRIT building (original part), The Weightman Block (Fourth & Campbell Streets), First Baptist Church (original building), Trinity Episcopal Church (supervising architect), Old City Hall on Pine Street (designer), Lycoming Opera House (destroyed by fire), Northern Central Trust Co. (since demolished), Hays Block (Pine & West Fourth Streets), Hess Block Metropolitan Block Schools on Erie Ave. (this partial list was taken from http://www.800parkplace.com/eberculver.htm)
The Trinity Episcopal Church (on West Fourth Street, of course) was designed in the Victorian Gothic style. Peter Herdic (of course) financed the building of the church. His father-in-law presented a generous gift of nine-bell chimes to the church as well. The church's stones were quarried in the mountain of Muncy, PA. The steeple is a whopping 210 feet.
No comments:
Post a Comment