Thursday, May 3, 2012

Pond, Wildwood

Further down Manchester Road to the west, Pond actually has houses that are much older than its neighbor Grover.
In particular, this double house right at the corner is a great example. It's a cool house, in bad shape, and is currently sitting vacant. What is the story behind this house?
There also is a gas station from what looks like the 1920's, which is now some sort of business.
The old house on the corner was a French restaurant a few years ago, but now it sits empty. It's an interesting house, but like the rest of Pond, is made of wood and lack of maintenance is taking its toll.
The general store, now closed, is actually built in front of an older house, perhaps as an expansion of the original, smaller house.
Updated: Thanks to Lynn Josse, I have learned more about the long, dilapidated building pictured above; it was the Pond Hotel, and you can read about its plight here.



2 comments:

  1. Tom Maher - KirkwoodMay 3, 2012 at 11:25 AM

    The (1875) Pond Inn was the name of the French restaurant. In its original (1990s, maybe before) iteration, it was owned and run by a man who was quite "original" in his attitude toward customers... - Anthony "Tony" Haenni. He passed away some 10+ years ago.
    It was revived around 2002 - here is a link to a RFT review: http://www.riverfronttimes.com/2002-01-23/restaurants/big-fish/.
    I had not realized it was long-closed.

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  2. The top building is the Pond Hotel, built in stages in the 1840s and 1870s. The historic buildings on this stretch of Manchester could really benefit from historic designation!

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