In 1998, the Maplewood Historic District was listed on the National and State Registers of Historic Places, and received a 1998 New York State Historic Preservation Award. We hope you join us for the next Maplewood Home & Garden Tour on September 18, 2010.

  Friends, you won’t want to miss this home tour! For anyone who has wished they could step into a Thomas Kinkaid cottage painting – you may step into life’s real art: Rochester’s first Ward Wellington Ward house, right here in Maplewood. Come discover this hidden treasure, a picturesque stucco and stone, English Cottage Revival. It sits ensconced in a wooded setting on Maplewood Ave., with a backyard overlook into the Genesee River Gorge.  Ward Wellington Ward, the home’s designer, was an American architect who was influenced by and contributed to the Arts and Crafts movement. His organic building materials, such as the beautiful stone roof, intrinsically integrate the home with the natural gorge environment. Our Eastern boundaries, the Genesee river gorge and powerful lower falls were part of the muse for our Olmsted inspired neighborhood.

Frederick Law Olmsted, the father of landscape architecture, envisioned living areas with scenic parkways adjoining specialty parklands. If one continued North along the gorge path, behind our famed Ward Wellington Ward, storybook house, one would arrive at the surprising dignity of a section of Maplewood Park, less know to outsiders. Trees, grassy parkland, and tennis courts reveal the grandeur and history of our neighborhood.  Here Olmsted’s vision is fully realized on a corner lot, where the median lined Seneca Parkway flows into Olmsted’s recreational park. This prized location features a Tudor Revival, which turns 100 this year!

The homeowners, Alice and Nick Zumbulyadis, have passionately preserved and restored their Tudor Revival. You will enter a wonderland of authenticity and detail in the Edwardian interior, taking in the antique table setting, early period furniture and original artwork. And, the Landmark Society will be on site,  right in the backyard of our 100 yr old house, providing information, suggesting walking tours of Rochester’s Olmsted parks, and serving refreshments! What is like to live in a wonderland of uber preservation? Come ask Alice!

This tour will feature six homes, and the Neogothic architecture of this year’s Head Quarters, The Church of the Ascension. You are invited inside all of them.  Every dwelling on this year’s Home Tour is listed on The National Register of Historic Places! The tour includes a free organ recital given in The Church of The Ascension, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., by an Eastman School of Music organist. Come and savor our dramatic and artful interplay between architecture and landscape. Come and celebrate the planned preservation of nature, an elemental characteristic of our Historic Maplewood.

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Tickets are available in advance for $10 ($8 senior citizens), groups of 10 or more $5, atDark Horse Coffee, 1182 Dewey Ave., The Peppermill Restaurant, 1776 Dewey Ave,Parkleigh, 215 Park Ave, Historic House Parts, 540 South Ave, and at R.C. Shaheen’s  two locations, 121 S. Main St. Fairport, and 1400 St. Paul St.

Tickets will be available on the day of the tour at this year’s Headquarters,The Church of the Ascension, 1360 Lake Ave, (Corner of Lake Ave and Riverside) for $12Tickets sold in advance, will be ready for pick up at our Headquarters.

For more information, call (585) 458-3460, ext. 7