Penfield Road Historic District
Why it's listed
Penfield Road Historic District is a 13-acre neighborhood east of the hamlet center of Penfield, New York. It holds 14 contributing buildings, including five nineteenth-century farmhouses on large lots, an early church, and two twentieth-century Colonial Revival houses, one of them a 1937 pre-cut kit house. The earliest building is the Federal-style Henry Fellows House of 1816, later given Neo-classical details. The First Baptist Church, a Greek Revival temple-form building dating from 1839, has a pedimented front and a bell tower. Italianate examples include the 1875 brick Southworth House with its cupola, described as among the finest in the area. The district was listed for architecture because the houses keep a high degree of integrity and show how owners updated homes with later styles. The grounds, with mature trees and a mid-nineteenth-century barn, recall the farms that gave way to suburban development after the 1940s.
Significance in brief: The district is argued to be architecturally significant for its concentration of intact nineteenth-century houses and a church in Federal, Greek Revival and Italianate styles. It also reflects the change from an agricultural community to an early twentieth-century suburb, with farmhouses, outbuildings and some remaining acreage recalling the area's farming past.
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 05001381, listed December 7, 2005. Summary generated October 2026 (model claude-sonnet-5-5, prompt v1.0-2026-10-29, confidence medium).
Key facts
| Address | 1862-1895 Penfield Rd., Penfield |
|---|---|
| County | Monroe County |
| Listed | December 7, 2005 |
| Reference number | 05001381 |
| Resource type | District |
| Period of significance | 1816-1937 |
| Architectural style | Early Republic/Federal; Mid-19th Century Greek Revival/Italian Villa; Late 19th and Early 20th Century Revivals/Colonial |
| Criteria |
|
| Areas of significance | Architecture |
| Level of significance | Local |
| Status (as stated in the nomination) | Historic and current uses are single dwellings and a religious facility; some former farm outbuildings are now used for storage or living space. |
| Acreage | 12.9 |
| Coordinates | 43.13067, -77.46827 (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 05001381.
- 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.