Lou’s View

By Lou Bernard

There comes a point on every tour I give. Right about where I hit the hundred block of West Water Street, there’s always a moment when I have to stop and reassure the audience that I’m not making any of this stuff up. It’s all documented history, and I feel I have to remind everyone of that.

This is because I always hear the giggles when I get to 104 West Water Street, particularly with a younger crowd. 104 West Water Street is the Peter Griffin Building.
Yes, yes, I am aware that Peter Griffin is a cartoon character. He’s on Fox on Sunday nights last I checked. This amuses the hell out of people, and it does nothing for my credibility that the very next stop is the Simpson Building.

Once I get past the introductions of these characters, however, I can get into the history of these two homes. And they’re both pretty fascinating.

The Griffin and Simpson Buildings are Historic Resource Survey Forms 035-LH-075 and 035-LH-74, respectively. The Griffin Building was built in 1903 for Peter P. Griffin, who, before he became a cartoon character, was a lumberman in Lock Haven. He bought the Allison White House, on the same location, and more or less remodeled it, using many of the pieces to create his new place.

The Griffin House contains pieces from the Queen’s Mansion, too. In the mid-1800s, Queen Maria Christina of Spain invested a lot of money into Clinton County, and had a mansion built in Farrandsville. The mansion lasted until the early 1900s, at which point there was a fire, and it was torn down. Parts of it remain, however, and you can still see then in the Griffin Building. The curvy windows on the top floor and the pillars outside came from the Queen’s Mansion. So the Griffin Building contains pieces of three different homes.

The Simpson House is an equally interesting story. Originally it was built in 1854 by David K. Jackman, who sold it. In 1863 it was purchased by William Simpson, who owned a lumber mill across the street. (All this lumber is really no coincidence; most of Lock Haven was created by the lumber industry back then.)

At the time, it was a much smaller, plainer-looking brick building. Simpson redid the place, just like Griffin.

(Actually it was the other way around. I’m writing these in the order I’d give them on the tour, but the Simpson Building predates the Griffin House.) Simpson, who gives me some credibility by not being named Homer, paid a bunch of his employees to redo the house. Actually he first sent his wife on a trip to Europe, and then redid the house. He did no adjustment to the Jackman Building at all, just wrapped it up with his own wood. He added the third story and the tower on top, making it one of Lock Haven’s most elaborate and architecturally significant buildings. The wood is carved to look like stone. Visually, you can’t tell it’s really wood. But if you walked up and knocked on it—Well, you’d be trespassing, but before the cops showed up, you’d have verified that it’s made of wood.

That block is one of the more historically important spots in Lock Haven. I stop and mention it on a lot of tours. And once we get past the snickers, everyone seems to enjoy the stories behind these two buildings. Or is it five buildings? Considering how many other buildings went into these, it’s a little hard to tell. D’OH!