Tucker House, Historic residential building in Martinez, United States.
Tucker House is a four-story, four-bedroom mansion built in 1877 for Captain John Tucker, a former sea captain from Nantucket who became a wheat farmer in Martinez. The house originally stood at 40 Escobar Street and was moved to 110 Escobar Street in the 1920s by postmaster Franklin Glass. Its attic was later found divided into eight cubicles, each with a mattress.
Captain John Tucker, a former sea captain from Nantucket, Massachusetts, settled in Martinez, became a wheat farmer and built the four-story mansion on Escobar Street in 1877. He died there on Halloween, October 31, 1880. In the 1920s city postmaster Franklin Glass moved the house to 110 Escobar Street, where it served as a bordello during the 1920s and 1930s.
The house takes its name from Captain John Tucker, a Nantucket sea captain who turned wheat farmer. Its household in the 1870s and 1880s mixed Tucker's wife Mary Swain Tucker, her brother Sylvester Swain with his wife and daughter, and a Chinese servant remembered only as Vu. Later, in the 1920s and 1930s, the moved building housed a bordello, a use uncovered when owners found eight attic cubicles with mattresses.
The house stands at 110 Escobar Street, having been moved there from 40 Escobar Street in the 1920s by postmaster Franklin Glass. It is a private residence, so visitors can view the exterior from the street; the attic cubicles and medicine bottles found by owners Joey and Linda Piscitelli are not open to the public.
When Joey and Linda Piscitelli opened the attic after buying the house in 2005, they found it split into eight cubicles, each with a mattress; research into that layout revealed the building's earlier use as a bordello. They also found scores of old medicine bottles and an 1879 medical almanac.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 94,766 contributors worldwide.