418 Park Ave - William Roof Home

William Roof bought the lot for $550 in 1889, and it became the property of his wife, Irene, for $3500 in 1894, indicating that the house had been built by that time. The house is in a Queen Anne style similar to 305 Park Avenue. A porch decorated along its top edge by a frieze, originally ran along the entire front of the house. There were balustrades both along the porch and the porch’s roof. By 1916, this porch had been replaced by one that bulged out on the west side and that wrapped entirely around the corner to the east side. The third floor has a turret with recessed porch.

William Roof was Franklin’s most prominent architect and building contractor in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Among his buildings that still remain are the Harding Museum at 302 Park Avenue, St. Mary’s Catholic Church and Rectory, the Miller house at 258 Hill Avenue, the old Conover Hardware at Fourth and Main, and the Wheel Works Building on Oxford Road. Roof’s now vanished works include the Baptist Church, that burned in about 1960, and the old water works. Roof is listed in this house in the 1900 directory. In that year the house was sold to Eleanor White, who owned it until 1913, when it was sold to the Christ family. The 1900 directory showed the widowed Mrs. White at this address.