Culver House

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The Oliver Culver House is Rochester, New York’s oldest home and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Oliver Culver, born in 1778 in Connecticut, came to Rochester as a surveyor and became a local pioneer with many roles, including surveying, road building, fur trading, shipbuilding, serving as a coroner, and working as a businessman and politician. He helped establish St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, laid out East Avenue, and built an early school near the Indian Landings. He also built one of Rochester’s first canal boats for travel on the Great Lakes and later served in the State Legislature.

The house sits at the southwest corner of East Avenue and Culver Road in the East Avenue Historic District. The original 1805 structure was a small frame house. In 1816, a larger front section was built in front of and attached to the old house—the portion that largely remains today. It was once used as a tavern with a separate entrance for women and a front entrance for men. The second floor features a ballroom with an elliptical ceiling inspired by ship hulls, two mantels, and a springboard floor to accommodate many guests. The house has been described as one of the most charming in the Genesee Valley.

In 1906, Caroline Culver and her husband moved the house about 1,000 feet to its current location on East Boulevard by East Avenue. The move damaged the rear part, which was later restored and expanded into the current library.

The house shows federal neoclassical style with slender, symmetrical design. Three generations of Culvers lived there from 1816 to 1945. In 1945, Elizabeth Gibson Holahan bought the house and became a prominent leader in local historic preservation, guiding restorations of several landmarks and historical sites in the area.