To spot the Emma Flower Taylor Mansion, just look for a grand, castle-like house with steep gabled roofs, dark stone walls, and wide porches wrapping around it-hiding behind well-tended bushes and trees right in front of you.
Now imagine it’s the late 1890s, and the clip-clop of horse-drawn carriages is echoing down the street. Suddenly you see this magnificent Queen Anne-style mansion, brighter than a wedding cake beneath the sunlight, every bit as impressive as you can imagine! Built from rough Medina sandstone, each stone was hand-cut on this very spot-so if you listen closely, you might almost hear the ringing of hammers from over a century ago. With wraparound porches for lazy summer evenings, pointy towers to peer out of on moonlit nights, and a maze of rooftops and chimneys, it looks like something a storybook princess might call home. And in a way, it was: New York Governor Roswell Pettibone Flower gifted this house to his daughter Emma as a wedding present. Talk about setting the bar high for fatherly gifts, right? This mansion covers over 5,600 square feet of pure family love and political ambition, and since 2002, it’s held its place on the National Register of Historic Places as one of Watertown’s true treasures. Imagine the laughter, the secrets, the footsteps echoing through those grand rooms-that’s the soul of the Emma Flower Taylor Mansion.
