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Morris Rosenfield House, 1900 6th Avenue
Most Significant Unprotected Structures:
Romanesque Revival mansion that may be the most elaborate home in the city
Architectural Style:
Romanesque Revival
Construction Date:
1890
Architect/Builder:
E.S. Hammatt, Architect
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When Morris Rosenfield built his massive, 18-room brick and stone house, he called it Spencer Place, because this was the original site of John Spencer’s home. Mr. Rosenfield was born in Germany and came to Rock Island as a young man in 1841, to join his uncles in a wholesale leather business. He made his fortune, however, by operating the Moline Wagon Company, a factory that made farm wagons and employed nearly 400 men. He was already elderly by the time his home was completed, and he would only live here six years until his death. The wagon company was sold to Deere & Company after Mrs. Rosenfield died in 1910. The mansion, which cost $50,000 to build, remained in the Rosenfield family for some years, with son Walter taking over ownership until the late teens, when he moved across 7th Avenue to what was known as the Buford House. Walter Rosenfield was president of Rock Island Bridge and Iron Works, and also served as mayor of Rock Island from 1923 to 1927.
Walter sold the house in 1916 to Martin Welch of Illinois Oil Company, who sold it again a few years later to St. Joseph’s Catholic Church for use as a convent. Forty years later, in 1958, the church built another convent and sold the mansion to the Tri-City Jewish Center for $85,000. The Center already owned the Buford House across 7th Avenue and needed space for its educational center. When a new Jewish Center was built on 30th Street in the late 1970s, Harris-Webber Ltd. of Northbrook, Illinois purchased this site to construct an eight-story senior citizen high rise. However, since federal dollars were involved in the project, an evaluation of the historic mansion was mandated. Fortunately it was found to be eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. Thus it could not be demolished if the developers hoped to keep the federal subsidy. They decided to restore the mansion for a senior center instead. That restoration was facilitated by the Rock Island City Council, who voted in 1980 to give $40,000 towards the restoration. The developers were permitted to demolish a brick carriage house near 7th Avenue.
Romanesque features of the structure include a cross gabled roof, tower with a conical roof, round topped arch over the left front window, and asymmetrical façade. The most notable feature is the use of materials: the mixing of dark red brick with five bands of rough-faced, squared (ashlar) stonework. Also of note are the stone dormer, the foliate pattern pressed tin cornice, the second story recessed porch and the massive front and carriage porches, both constructed of the same pinkish ashlar stone.
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