Grove Place Historic District

Grove Place is a compact residential district of twenty-two buildings in eastern downtown Rochester, set among Gibbs, Selden, Windsor and Grove streets. It preserves part of "The Grove," the homestead area settled in the 1840s by the Ward and Selden families, who intermarried and lived there for more than a century. George B. Selden developed his internal combustion engine, patented in 1870, in a workshop behind the Selden Street buildings, though that workshop no longer exists. The original homestead was demolished in 1914 for the YMCA. Surviving buildings, mostly two- and three-story homes built between about 1845 and the 1890s, show Italianate, Queen Anne, Eastlake and Greek Revival influences. The standout is a row of six Gothic-Tudor Revival townhouses at 128-152 Gibbs Street, built in 1878 for Theodore Bacon, which was unusual for upstate New York and for a city of mainly detached houses. Consistent size and setbacks give the area a neighborhood feel amid commercial surroundings.