Over the past month or so we’ve talked about where you can take a drive to find octagon houses (2/8), Quonset huts and geodesic domes (2/15), manufactured diners (2/22 and 3/1), and cobblestone buildings (3/8), all here in western New York. This week we’re looking at oddities and curios.

*Fieldstone Buildings*

We start with the lovely early 20th-century Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, in Savona… which I have often mistakenly described as cobblestone. Its chalet roof and dramatic shingled front are striking in their own right. But the foundation, buttresses, and lower walls are a MIX of cobblestones (which can be held in the palm of one hand) and fieldstones (requiring both hands to pick up). Good Shepherd Church is a jewel-box treasure.

Bath has a single-story fieldstone commercial block at 6-8 Buell Street. Many of Bath’s 19th-century commercial buildings are partially fieldstone (often mortared over), with brick fronts. The Buell Street site is outspoken and uncompromising, all fieldstone, and all unhidden.

While that’s a “warts and all” presentation, Garrett Chapel on Keuka Bluff has a kinder, gentler fieldstone fabric, as befits a memorial to a beloved only child, who died having scarcely entered into adulthood. It’s well worth the drive, but don’t do it when the roads are snowy or icy.

Many drivers between Hammondsport and Watkins Glen are puzzled by a small fieldstone structure on County Road 114. This is an 1852 berry evaporator, built to dry black raspberries, which were a cash crop for local folks at the time. The evaporator now belongs to Wayne History Group, which arranged for its recent restoration.

*Roadside Architecture*

In the early days of auto travel, businesspeople wanting to pull in the traffic sometimes created attractive, if occasionally bizarre, structures that served not only as unmistakable (even unavoidable) markers, but as attractions themselves. “The Wigwams” still pops eyes on State Route 417 in Jasper, even though it’s only rarely open to the public. It was once a free museum of Indian artifacts, plus lunch counter, gift shop, service station, et cetera, et cetera.

On the more-traveled routes 5 and 20, travelers still enjoy a “Dutch” windmill, originally anchor for a set of tourist cabins and tea room.

*Others*

Ganondagan State Historic Site, near Victor, has a walk-in longhouse, as would have been on the site during Haudeonosaunnee (Iroquois) days. It’s outfitted as would have been the case long ago, and it’s a memorable experience, besides being educational – you might like it. Amusingly, it’s a state building, so needs to meet fire codes and the like, which leads, if you look closely, to some compromises in materials.

Geneva is home to a two-story 1888 astronomical observatory, now privately owned but occasionally opened to the public. Dr. William R. Brooks of Hobart College built the dome and telescope, with which he spent many a night and discovered many a comet. The 19th-century form of the Smith Observatory will ring a bell with anyone who’s enjoyed old movies and comic strips.

Go out onto State Route 53 near the unincorporated settlement of Wheeler (or Wheeler center), look off to the east side of the road, and you may spot an elderly tobacco barn. These long low structures are vaguely reminiscent of the Haudenosaunnee longhouses. They point back to the day when southeastern Steuben County, and much of Chemung County, were significant tobacco growers. Once the leaves were harvested, they’d hang in these specialized barns to dry. Happy driving!