Houston BarnardThe Neighborhood You Can Call Home

Perhaps it’s the mélange of quiet tree-lined streets, vintage harp lamps, buzzing sidewalks and breathtaking historic and new build estates, as well as the happening location. Or maybe it’s the spirited community bubbling with life and friendship? It’s always neat to note the number of residents whose children, siblings, and relatives choose Houston Barnard for their home, just like Jamie and her family.

Jamie Columbus is a super fan and long-term lover of the Houston Barnard (HB) neighborhood. From having raised her children in a Cotswold cottage to investing in a contemporary home, she jests about test driving a selection of neighborhood homes, including a Sandringham Road transitional. In high school years, Jamie lived in a federal style home on Ambassador Drive, where her parents were rooted for thirty-six years.

Houston Barnard began development of the Houston Barnard Neighborhood naming streets: Ambassador Drive, Sandringham Road, Trevor Court Road, Georgian Court Road and Esplanade Drive. The stately homes became residences for scions of industry including presidents of Xerox and Kodak. Houston Barnard shaped the landscape of many Rochester landmarks and was a poignant example of the entrepreneurial spirit which lives on today in the heart of the community he proudly created.

Houston Barnard is breathtaking year round. In the summer, view a rainbow of perennial gardens, emerald-lush lawns, birds and butterflies. With the changing of the seasons in time for Halloween, leaves turn harvest colors on tree-lined, lamp-lit streets as shrubs burst with hot reds and chartreuse. Thanksgiving reminds residents to plan for winter holidays when neighbors walk dogs on snow-plowed sidewalks watching holiday decorations pop up midst newly formed snowmen. Spring is dazzling as pink and yellow buds blossom and deer, ducks, hawks visit. Rochester’s renowned architects are represented in this myriad of styles and periods which blend seamlessly enmeshed in luscious landscapes. Action returns for walkers, joggers, bikers and roller bladers. Most beautiful of all are the friendships and soulful connections built over the years.

See why residents love calling Houston Barnard home!

The Houston Barnard Neighborhood Association’s mission is “to ensure that the Houston Barnard Neighborhood continues to be a safe, beautiful and friendly place in which we all love to live.” It welcomes newcomers and brings neighbors together for a festive, annual potluck picnic. Games, face painting, henna, volleyball, bouncy houses and a selection of other activities abounds: fun for everyone!

Residents who like to connect, do so through the neighborhood Directory, which the Columbus family designed for over a decade, as well as through the Houston Barnard Facebook page. The Garden Lover’s Club (GLC) offers another opportunity to get together during winter months. See some of the Houston Barnard Neighborhood Directories and Garden Lover’s Club materials – designed by Judy’s Broker Network CEO Jamie Columbus:

HBNA picnic invitations (2003–2022) designed by JBN.

Turn on to the stately streets of Houston Barnard’s first of two prominent suburban developments known as the Houston Barnard Subdivision, and one is quickly enveloped under luscious tree canopies and lovely harp street lamps. This neighborhood encompasses Grosvenor Road, Pelham Road, and Council Rock Avenue, bordered by Highland Avenue to the south and East Avenue to the northeast.

This historic, early twentieth century gem of Brighton is one of many upscale regions designed by prominent real estate developer Houston Barnard beginning in 1918.

Like the neighboring Houston Barnard Tract across Clover Street, this subdivision was developed with high minimum house prices, large lots, and forbidden outbuildings (other than one garage).

The Houston Barnard Subdivision encompasses Grosvenor Road, Pelham Road, and Council Rock Avenue, bordered by Highland Avenue (to the south and East Avenue to the northeast).

To learn more about the Houston Barnard Tract, encompassing Ambassador Drive, Sandringham Road, Elm Lane, Georgian Court Road, Trevor Court Road and Esplanade Drive (east of Clover Street), please visit our Houston Barnard Tract page.

“We love welcoming new residents to the neighborhood.”

However, architectural design was not standardized nor restricted, allowing famous architects like Leander McCord and Ward Wellington Ward to take creative agency in craftsmanship and embark on very personalized designs in close correspondence with their trailblazing corporate executive clients. Thus, the subdivision boasts a great diversity in styles, from impressive Craftsman manors to majestic, eclectic Tudor Revivals with steep, dormer decorated roof pitches and opulent brickwork and masonry. The detailed work of a 1920s influx in Italian master craftsmen, alongside the war-stalled, drawn-out purchasing of lots, make for a very architecturally diverse presentation of styles, proportions, and textures. Most homes boast impressive grounds and sculptures curated by master gardeners.

Ward Wellington Ward, though most prominent in Syracuse, created a collection of designs in Brighton. For example, Ward designed Nos. 42, 75, 165, 168, and 191 Grosvenor Road and Nos. 40, 110, 115, 125, 150, 155, and 165 Pelham Road in Brighton.

Ward was famous for his quick pen and watercolor sketches of home exteriors that Irving Hames, Houston Barnard’s salesman, could pitch to prospective inhabitants.

Houston Barnard’s network of architects embraced elements of the Arts and Crafts style, a movement conceived in the mid 19th century by William Morris to oppose the streamlined, drab housing manufacturing born of the Industrial Revolution. Morris, like any other proponent of Arts Nouveau or Art Deco, valued the individualized hand craftsmanship of the Medieval Age. Architects like Ward applied this doctrine to their Tudoresque homes that fill most of the Houston Barnard Subdivision.

Both Houston Barnard neighborhoods had roads, curbs, sidewalks, and harp-shaped street lamps installed before many of the homes were constructed.

One might notice that several of the Subdivision’s homes are split-level, prairie-style ranches (many designed by notable Rochester architect Don Hershey). These were built in decades following the Great Depression, where development of the Subdivision slowed considerably. For example, during the 1930s, in the separate Council Rock Estates (south of Highland), all of Houston Barnard’s street appurtenances (lighting, curbs, sidewalks, etc.) were in place but the lots were empty. This was due to the nature of the economy at the time and Houston Barnard’s spiral from a 5-million-dollar net worth to just $2000 at the time of his death in 1936. However, in a post-World War II boom, the remaining empty lots were filled in, adding a new degree of architectural diversity to the Subdivision.

We are grateful to our Brighton High School intern, Corban Vogler, who is studying to be a licensed real estate agent and pursuing his dream of becoming an architect, for compiling information on the Houston Barnard Subdivision.