The mansion was designed by the Buffalo architectural firm of Green & Wicks and built in 1891–1892. It is a 3+1⁄2-story, two-bay, brownstone mansion in the Richardsonian Romanesque style. It features a short tower, smooth piers with decorated capitals, windows with transoms, carved tympanum, and deep-set windows. The 24-room home also has stained glass windows, oak flooring, 12 fireplaces, and a solarium. Also on the property is a contributing carriage house.[2]
The mansion features pierced and hand-carved woodwork, mosaics, stained glass and friezes. There are Tiffany light fixtures including decorative motifs with cherubs, peacocks, leaves, and shells.[3]
The home was built by Harrison F. Watson (1853–1904), an Erie roofing paper magnate[4] and holder of U.S. Patents on gaskets and tubes.[5] Harrison and his wife, Carrie Tracy, an avid gardener,[3] lived in the home with their daughter, Winifred, until 1923.[2][6]
In 1923, Frederic Felix Curtze (1858–1941),[4] president of the Erie Trust Company,[7] purchased the home and lived at the property until his death in 1941, when his family donated the property and it officially became a museum. Today, the Mansion is owned by the Erie County Historical Society and is operated as a historic house museum.[2][8]
It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.[1] It is located in the West Sixth Street Historic District.
