Nightmare on Cayuga Street

Over the years I've passed by this house more times than I can count, and it has definitely fallen on hard times. Mind you, it's just my opinion, but this is possibly the worst paint job I've ever seen, both in concept and application. For months and months I hoped that the bright blue around the windows was really painter's masking tape, and something wonderful was in the works to redeem the unfortunate pink and yellow, but, alas, not so. The structure is so intricate and beautiful that it hurts to see it so Baby Jane'd with thick cheap paint and hideous color. The grounds are neglected as well; the two metal sheds in the front yard on the right are dented and peeling and have For Sale signs taped to the fronts. The grass, as you can see, is curb appeal khaki.

Built by W.W. Brown in 1889, the original style is "Barbary Coast Gothic" Eastlake. A much older photo shows a cupola and a kind of widow's walk up on top between the dormers, but I don't ever remember seeing it.

I found this most fascinating history: the house became a "Keeley Cure" Sanitarium in 1893. The target audience was alcoholics and narcotics addicts. The ingredients of the Keeley Cure were a mystery, but rumored to be a "double chloride of gold" that involved three injections a day. Another treatment process involved treating narcotics addicts with a great many enemas and laxatives. Founded in Illinois, the Keeley Institute offered treatment to alcoholics from 1879 to 1965, and was the first to recognize alcoholism as a medical disease instead of a social vice.

Today the Victorian is known as simply the WW Brown House, and it is subdivided for multiple dwellings.