GEORGE EASTMAN’S HOUSE
Photograph by Lynda Pflueger
In 1902, Eastman purchased farmland in Rochester to finally build his dream home. He bought what he called the last farm within the city limits of Rochester. The eight-and-a-half-acre property was located on 900 East Avenue.
Within a few months, he hired an architect to design a colonial revival‒style mansion and a landscape architect to lay out the grounds. Eastman wanted to be able “to raise animals, grow vegetables, and entertain guests” in beautiful surroundings.
The stately fifty-room, four-story, stone-columned mansion took three years to build and cost five hundred thousand dollars (around five million today). The house had its own electrical generator, a twenty-one-station internal phone system, a built-in vacuum cleaning system, an elevator, and a central clock network.Located on the main floor of the house were a living room, small library, billiard room, music conservatory, and a dining room. In the conservatory, Eastman installed in organ, which cost $30,319.25. It was considered the top of the line in organs.
Photograph by Barbara Puorro Galasso
Upstairs were fifteen bedrooms, each with its own bathroom. On the third floor, Eastman established a laboratory where he cooked and experimented with photography; a projector room to show home movies; and a storeroom for his guns, fishing tackle, and camping gear.
Extensive grounds surrounded the house. They included a lily pond, flower gardens, vegetable gardens, a rock garden, orchards, berry patches, greenhouses, stables, a tool house, repair shop, a carriage house, and barns. Eastman, fond of his animals, gave each one a name.
Twenty-eight servants, supervised by a professional housekeeper, staffed Eastman’s home. The housekeeper had a yearly operating budget of one hundred thousand dollars. Part of her job was compiling monthly reports for Eastman. She documented the about the amount of milk produced by his five Jersey cows, how much butter churned from cream obtained from the cows’ milk, how many eggs were laid by the chickens, and how many peaches were grown in his orchard.
