Geneseo Historic District
Also known as: Main Street Historic District; The Homestead; Hartford House
Why it's listed
Geneseo's historic district in Livingston County, New York, enlarges an earlier Main Street district to take in most of the village's best-preserved older areas. It holds the commercial, religious and civic core along Main Street, ten residential streets to the east, two estates of the Wadsworth family (the Homestead and Hartford House) and the fifteen-acre Temple Hill Cemetery, established in 1807. Buildings date from the 1810s to the 1930s, and wood-frame houses predominate. Styles include Federal, Greek Revival, Gothic Revival, Italianate, Italian Villa, Second Empire, Queen Anne and Colonial Revival. Individual streets show a consistent period: South and Second Streets hold early Federal and Greek Revival homes, Center Street is the most varied in use, and Oak Street, laid out in 1889, has the largest group of Queen Anne houses. Hartford House, a brick residence of about 1836, is among the more imposing buildings. The boundaries were drawn to leave out altered older structures and modern intrusions, leaving the village's most intact historic fabric.
Significance in brief: The district is the village's only concentration of substantially intact, contiguous historic properties. Its streets show the stages of Geneseo's development through a wide range of styles from Federal to Colonial Revival, and it includes the estates of the prominent Wadsworth family. The expansion adds residential streets, a second Wadsworth estate and a nineteenth-century cemetery to the earlier Main Street district.
Machine-generated summary. This summary was generated by a language model from the official nomination document and has not been reviewed line by line by an editor. It may contain errors. Check the source document before relying on any detail. Source: nomination document (PDF) · National Archives catalog entry. NRHP reference 08000659, listed July 17, 1977. Summary generated October 2026 (model claude-sonnet-5-5, prompt v1.0-2026-10-29, confidence medium).
Key facts
| Address | Historic core and most fashionable area as well as both Wadsworth Estates; The Homeste and Hartford House, Geneseo |
|---|---|
| County | Livingston County |
| Listed | July 17, 1977 |
| Reference number | 08000659 |
| Resource type | District |
| Architectural style | Early Republic-Federal, Mid-19th Century, Late Victorian, Late 19th and 20th Century Revivals |
| Areas of significance | Architecture |
| Level of significance | National |
| National Historic Landmark | Yes, designated July 17, 1977 |
| Status (as stated in the nomination) | Historic and current uses are both listed as domestic, government, education, religion, funerary and commerce; the document counts 288 contributing and 19 noncontributing buildings. |
| Acreage | 808 |
| Within district | Main Street Historic District (Boundary Increase) |
| Coordinates | 42.79858, -77.81437 (NPS GIS) |
What listing means for this property
This is a historic district. Buildings within its boundary are either contributing (they add to the district's significance) or non-contributing. Owners of contributing income-producing buildings can claim the 20% federal rehabilitation tax credit; homeowners should look at state credits. National Register districts impose no design review by themselves; a local historic district ordinance, if one exists, does (the difference explained).
General information, not legal or tax advice. Rules change; confirm with your State Historic Preservation Office or a qualified adviser.
Sources and further reading
- National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places database (snapshot May 2026), reference 08000659.
- Nomination form (PDF, National Archives) — catalog entry
- This listing as JSON
Last updated October 2026. Found an error? See the editorial policy for how to report it.