Gingerbread Mansion, Victorian bed and breakfast in Ferndale, United States.
Gingerbread Mansion is a three-story Queen Anne Victorian house at 400 Berding Street, built of redwood with 24-inch double walls. Its Berding Street facade carries spindles and turnings, an octagonal tower with a conical roof, a gabled section with a small balcony, and a covered porch with turned posts. A plainer 50-foot addition was attached at the rear in 1920.
The building was constructed in 1899 and initially served as a doctor's home and office. Later, in 1921, it became Ferndale's first hospital and received a major expansion.
The name comes from the spindles and turnings that cover the Berding Street facade and continue partway down Brown Street. Dr. Ring's home was a social centre of town, with musical evenings where he played violin and his daughter Verna the piano. In 1902 Verna married Charles Francis Taubman in the parlor, with the reception held in a tent on the grounds.
The inn stands at 400 Berding Street, at the corner of Brown Street, where the ornamented facade runs partway down the side street. The 1920 rear addition, once the hospital wing, is plainer than the front. Guests enter through the covered porch; the octagonal tower and balcony are best seen from the sidewalk.
Dr. Hogan J. Ring, born Haagan J. Fjorkenstad in Norway in 1851, took his surname from the family estate Ringtogen because the Norwegian name was hard to pronounce. He delivered, by his own reckoning, half the babies in Ferndale. Ten Ring children grew up in the house, and in 1902 daughter Verna married Charles Taubman in the parlor, with the reception held in a tent on the grounds.
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