Frontier House, Haus in den Vereinigten Staaten
The Frontier House is a historic hotel and residential building on Center Street in Lewiston, New York, constructed in 1824 with a solid stone core featuring walls approximately 30 inches thick. The four-story rectangular structure displays Federal-style architecture with oval windows, a prominent portico, and a hip roof, while the interior preserves original plaster ceilings, a reconstructed central staircase, and hardwood flooring throughout.
The Frontier House was founded in 1824 and quickly became the most renowned inn west of Albany, hosting prominent guests including Governor DeWitt Clinton, President William McKinley, and writer Mark Twain. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974 and after years of vacancy was restored by Ellicott Development beginning in 2019, with completion in summer 2025.
The Frontier House is named for Joshua Fairbanks, the builder who created it in 1824, and his name lives on in the restaurant Fairbanks that operates there today. The building still displays the craftsmanship of early American architecture with its fan windows, heavy fireplaces, and distinctive structure that once served as the finest hotel west of Albany.
The building is located in downtown Lewiston on Center Street and is easily walkable to nearby shops, cafes, and cultural sites. The lower floors house the Fairbanks restaurant with wine, beer, and cocktail service, while the upper floors offer short-term rental accommodations and apartments for both visitors and residents.
The building is tied to local ghost stories, with workers reporting strange phenomena during renovation such as doors opening on their own, missing tools, and mysterious sounds. Some accounts link these occurrences to William Morgan's disappearance in 1826, an event connected to a secret society that shaped local legends about the place.
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