Wellsville’s Pink House recommended for historic listing

The Pink House in Wellsville, built in 1866, has been recommended by a state board for listing on State and National Registers of Historic Places.

In 2020, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office indicated that the Pink House was among 18 varied locations to receive the listing recommendation from the state’s Board for Historic Preservation

The Italianate-style villa also includes intact historic-period features including marble statuary, an ice-house, a three-story carriage barn, a gazebo and a building known as the Fossil House, where original owner Edwin P. Hall stored his extensive fossil collection that now resides at the New York State Museum in Albany and the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh.

Still in family ownership, the home retains its original pink exterior color that gives it its name.

“These historic locations highlight so much of what is exceptional about New York and its incredible contributions to our nation’s history,” Cuomo said in a press release on Monday. “By placing these landmarks on the State and National Registers of Historic Places, we are helping to ensure these places and their caretakers have the funding needed to preserve, improve and promote the best of this great state.”

State and National Registers listing can assist owners in revitalizing properties, making them eligible for various public preservation programs and services, such as matching state grants and state and federal historic rehabilitation tax credits.

The registers are the official lists of buildings, structures, districts, landscapes, objects and sites significant in the history, architecture, archaeology and culture of New York and the nation. There are more than 120,000 historic properties throughout the state listed on the National Register of Historic Places, individually or as components of historic districts. Property owners, municipalities and organizations from communities throughout the state sponsored the nominations.

Once the recommendations are approved by the Commissioner, who serves as the State Historic Preservation Officer, the properties are listed on the New York State Register of Historic Places and then nominated to the National Register of Historic Places, where they are reviewed and, once approved, entered on the National Register.