Robinson House and Farm, Robinson United Methodist Church (Robinson Memorial Chapel)

In 1865, after years of running a successful tannery and farm, the Robinson family discovered oil on their farm, and in the following years, Samuel M. Robinson built a fine home and farm complex at the top of a winding hill north of Parker City. The complex includes a large Italianate house, a stone chapel built by Elisha Robinson II, a barn, carriage house, ice house, granary, mill house, and other associated outbuildings. The house, constructed of a warm orange brick, maintains its original segmental-arched windows and slate roof. Paired brackets under the eaves, the flared porch roofs, and the elongated windows are all Italianate in style. Water pipes throughout the house are wooden. Small as it is, the Gothic Revival chapel is an impressive display of religious devotion. It has a polygonal apse, and an unusual pinnacled belfry consisting of two stone uprights and a cross beam over the main entrance. The remaining buildings are utilitarian, but the early-nineteenth-century board-and-batten barn is particularly handsome.