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KEYSER-READ-HOLT
In the late 1850's Hiram T. Keyser, a mason and brick-layer, came to help construct a number of village buildings. The brick house and the small stone houes next to it were almost certainly built by him. Stephen H. Tyler, a talendted carpenter, bought the brick house in 1873. Probably many of the distinctive features belong to him, in particular the ornaments in the lintels on the street side, the bay window, and the superb porch.
The columns of the porch are reputed to have been made from logs floated down the river. This porch is the only remaining example in the village, but half a century ago there were two similar porches in the village-all probably the work of Tyler. The two-story original part of the house was magnificently restored by Mrs. Eleanor Read, (Mrs. Henry Holt's mother), in 1947 rnaking this Elsah's first 20th century restoration. Mrs Read added the one story brick wing in 1960.
ONETTO-BRADLEY HOUSE
Built in the late 1850's by the Onetto family, this house was transformed between 1880 and 1882 into a magnif icent home by Enos Doron, owner of the flour mill on the river front. At that time he added the cupola and the bracketed cornice. After 1905 the building served as an inn, first under the Worlhey family and later under Principia. The balcony has been changed since this picture was taken in 1931. In 1972 Edward and Paula Bradley extensively restored the interior of the building as their home.
PARSONAGE-PITCHFORD HOUSE
The Elsah Methodists erected their parsonage in 1859, fifteen years befeore the church across the street. The brick portion of this home has had very few changes over the years. Michael and Mary Ann Pitchford began restoring the house in 1977, adding the carriage house and rear wing.
REINTGES-SCHWARZ HOUSE
Peter Reintges, who built this house about 1853, was one of Elsah's first settlers. He was a stone mason and built a number of Elsah's first stone houses, His first home was on the hill immediately behind the house itself. When Peter Reintges died in 1863, Christian Loehr married Mrs. Reintges and raised the Reintges children.
Loehr turned this building into a hotel and bar, while he completed Reintges'brick home across the street (where the Maple Leaf Cottages are today).
For many years the building had a door where one of the front windows is today, and the living room was the bar. A lease dating from the early 1880's tells us that the saloon was equipped with eleven chairs, three tables, an ice cooler, an ice chest, and two faucets, along with mirrors and a clock. The interior contains a stone floor in the hallway and a remarkable vaulted cellar, a reminder of the days when the old building was the "Hotel Elsah."
Text from Elsah: A Historic Guidebook
by Charles B. Hosmer, Jr. and Paul O. Williams, 1967. Used with Permission
from Historic Elsah
Foundation